Unforgettable
by LastCornerStone
Summary: 3 after Voldemort's death Harry is missing. As Ron and Hermione continue searching for him Tom Riddle searches for his past. What did he miss? What/Who did he leave? As Tom returns to life as Harry Potter he finds the answers whether he wants them or not.
1. Chapter 1: Elusive

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Harry Potter or any of it's characters, settings, or plot ideas, why would I be writing here, instead of making another million dollar book?

**Chapter 1: Elusive**

It was over. Everything was being rebuilt. The ministry was stronger than ever and corruption had been exterminated from the government's ranks. Everything was perfect…right? Wrong.

Ron looked out the stormy cold window of the Burrow. Winter was coming in fast. If he planed to get to he'd have to hurry and pick up Hermione or there'd be no time.

He walked down the steps heavily. Each time his foot landed on the wooden step it made a heavy thud and the crack of wood as if the house was letting know how much weight was on his shoulders. Doors shut as he passed and reopened when he had gone by. His family had been giving him a wide birth sense the battle, one he didn't mind having. In fact the only time they really saw each other was during meals and even then they didn't speak much.

Everything was awkward now; he wasn't around to make everything seem okay with one of his awkward questions about magic or his goofy smile which made all the arguments seem stupid. He wasn't there to smooth the ruffled feathers caused by the Twins' jokes, or Percy's continued stuck up attitude. He wasn't there to make Ginny forget about cursing her brothers with her infamous Bat Boogie Hex. He wasn't their to play Quidditch with, or to laugh with him when Hermione lost again at chess.

Ron sighed and grabbed his coat, threw on a scarf and hurried to the fireplace. He threw in some floo powder and was off. He landed in Diagon Ally and hurried through the ever building number of customers. He swerved around all the carts and vendors, making his way to the ice cream shop they used to eat at all the time. Hermione was sitting at their normal table, uneaten ice cream dripping over her hand as she stared off into space.

Ron took up a napkin and wiped the mess off her hands. She came to as he was cleaning it off. She smiled and took the napkin from him. He sat down across from her. Before they had even been aloud to say hello the crowds were on them. Whether reporters or just people they once knew, they were all staring, asking questions or muttering to each other.

Hermione took Ron's arm and led him away. They left Diagon Ally for the Muggle street on the other side of the Leaky Caldron. They relaxed away from the prying eyes filled with either pity or blame. No one looked at them the same anymore. Whenever they entered shops, inns, food joints, it was ll the same, sad eyes, well wishing hopefuls lingering around them, hoping to catch a word about him or give their opinion or advice on the search.

The wizarding community had two opinions on their business. One, Ron and Hermione were to innocent bystanders which should be fondled and told it wasn't their fault, rapped in cloth and put away like china dolls when young children come to visit with a hyper poodle OR that they were the ones to be blamed. They were the last one to see their hero, and therefore the only ones who could have saved Harry James Potter.

No one who truly knew Harry, thought that he was dead. He came back to life so often it was assumed that he was never alive to begin with. Ron himself still expected Harry to walk around the corner with a large tray of shot glasses, a bottle of finest Firewhisky, and a game of Exploding Snap, laughing and saying how it was such a good joke.

Hermione took his hand in her own as they walked to a small coffee shop, the one where Harry had first brought them, where Ron had had his first taste of coffee and bounced around the square for an hour before the first sip of caffeine had worn off. Harry and Hermione had shared a laugh over that one. Thinking of the way Harry's eyes had light up as he watched his friend bouncing in his seat like some child who'd tried chocolate for the first time, brought a tear to Ron's eye.

The tear didn't make it any farther, however. Ron had shed his last tears for Harry a long time ago. He was focused on finding his friend. He was one of many who were sure that Harry was still alive. There was nothing to prove that he wasn't. Hermione supported his quest to find his best friend even though her enthusiasm had died after the first four months. She followed along to the Auror offices purely out of habit now, and Ron knew it but he felt like with every clue that they found to Harry's whereabouts gave her a glimmer of hope that she needed.

They sat in silence that had once been filled with laughter and jokes pointed at each other. Ron could still see Harry sitting, one leg resting on the other, leaning back in his chair with the coffee mug in his hands, laughing with his head tilted to the sky, mouth open wide as he laughed deep and booming over the little café, his glasses slipping down his nose as he expressed unhindered mirth at his friend's expense.

Ron swallowed hard and turned to look at Hermione. Their little party could now begin. It had been three years since anyone had seen him. Three years on that day. But, the third time was a charm right? Maybe he'd come waltzing through the door and tell them what he was thinking when he ran off. And Maybe Ron's brothers' would move out and get married, or the Twins would settle down and have a quiet family. It was too much to ask for, even after everything they did, it was too much.

They were inside for once, as the snow had picked up again. The café was small and cozy with a few locals hanging around twittering on about everything and nothing like nothing had happened. While it was an improvement from the people that hounded on them inside the wizarding town, Ron still found it almost as offending that these people didn't even seem to notice that Harry was gone.

Ron sipped his coffee and watched a small gaggle of cops drinking coffee in the corner of the room. They were laughing at something the tall dark haired man had just said. He had a nice leather coat on and his hands were in the air, waving around as the cops watched him talking. They started laughing and the dark haired man ruffled his hair in a familiar way.

It was funny, but before his disappearance, Ron had thought that Harry was one of a kind, that no one could be anything like him, but know he say Harry in everyone. He sighed and sipped his coffee again. The cops' laughter was becoming a bit obnoxious. Ron shout them a glare. Just then three or four pagers, Hermione had called them, went off. The dark haired man and two cops and a young redhead all looked down at their belts. They stood up and dropped some cash on the table and left excusing themselves hurriedly from the table.

As he turned, Ron watched the dark haired man. It was like the scene before his eyes had been slowed down so that Ron could see every detail clearly. The black hair was trying to catch up with the head as brilliant green eyes looked to the door. Hands went to the waist band of his dark blue jeans and he pulled a gun, Hermione called it. His hands were tough and callused, as if manual labor was common to them. The skin was tanned as if he spent most of his time outside in the sun but it held a fine texture to it which made Ron think that the man had not been doing much for a while. His mouth was set in a soft frown and his eyebrows were betraying his anxiety that his cool appearance fought so hard to mask.

His face was lined with scars, some long, old and deep, other short, new, and fading. What really caught Ron's eye was the trade mark lightning bolt scar over his right eye. At first Ron didn't believe himself, thought it was a trick of the light or his mind painting a picture that he needed to see. But as the man hurried out the door, trailed by the young redhead and the two cops, Ron watched him go and there was no doubt in his mind that it was the elusive Harry Fucking Potter.


	2. Chapter 2: Forgotten

**Chapter 2: Forgotten**

Ron sat dumbfounded in the middle of the café. He kept gapping not really realizing what was going on around him. Harry had long since left the café and the sounds of sirens had replaced him. Apparently someone was doing a bit of Christmas shopping without their wallet. Hermione was too busy with the attention that wasn't focused on her for once, that she missed the odd looks passing over her boyfriend's faces as he tried to muddle through what was happening to his best friend.

Harry was a hero, a savoir, he had one and there wasn't any fighting left to do. So why the Hell was he hanging out here acting like some Muggle "please men" when he was the greatest Auror since Moody with a bank account bigger then Europe and a girl friend more pleasurable then a horde of Veela? Ron figured it had something to do with the press, but not tell his best friends and then completely ignoring them in their old hangout? Something was definitely wrong with the black haired wonder.

Suddenly Ron wrenched out of his chair and flew down the street to the jewelry store. The cops were holding back the people around the scene of the brake-in. Ron could see Harry and his female redhead friend talking to the two cops he had seen before. Ron cast a small 'Notice-Me-Not' charm on himself and slipped under the tap.

"Harry you great prick! What the hell are you playing at?!" Ron called flinging his arms around the man. "We've been looking all over for you! Did you think that you could really ditch us that easily? You've got Hermione in a right state!"

Suddenly Ron was flying through the air and when he could blink the water out of his eyes he realized Harry flung him off and had some contraption pointed at him. Ron, not knowing what the gun did, merely got up off the ground, pissed off now.

"RON! DON'T!" Hermione shouted as she raced through the tape to her boyfriend. She knocked the gun out of the way and hauled Ron to his feet. "Harry! What do you think you are doing?" She hissed. "You know he doesn't know what that thing does. And since when do you carry one around? What are _you_ doing here anyway?" Suddenly she reeled back and slapped him across the face.

The two cops and the redhead sprung into action, finally shocked out of their stupors.

"Hold it right their ma'am! How did you get across the tape! O'Rilly! Get them back now!" The taller of the two cops called holding Hermione off. Harry was gentle rubbing his cheek with a confused look on his face. The redhead beside Harry was trying to get him to show her his face but he continued to stare at Ron and Hermione like they had suddenly joined at the hip and grown second heads.

"No, really! It's okay! We're friends of Harry's!" Hermione protested shoving the third policemen's hands off her. "Look lady." The first police man said helping the other two to get them back. "I don't know who this Harry guy is, but you are contaminating this crime scene."

"Harry! Tell them it's true Harry!" Ron called over the police man's shoulder. Harry turned his head to look behind him as if trying to see who the redheaded boy was talking to. "Don't act like you don't know us!" Ron shouted angrily.

"But I don't." Harry said matter-of-factly, staring blankly at them ad they were hauled off by the burly policeman in their momentary stupor. Ron and Hermione traded looks of disbelief.

"Alright Harry, you've had you're joke. Fred and George will be very pleased with you!" Ron called angrily over the police men's shoulders as they dragged them over the line. "Stop fooling around. You have some serious explaining to do!"

"My name is Tom! Not Harry! I don't know you but you are interfering with my crime scene!" Harry snapped turning away from them. Ron and Hermione watched gapping as Harry walked off arm-in-arm with the young redhead. The two cops followed behind in animated conversation with Harry, but he would have none of it. He seemed to snap at the two cops and they dropped the topic of conversation.

Ron picked himself up from were he had fallen onto the sidewalk. "I don't believe this! That's Harry! I'd know him anywhere!" Ron cried running his hands through his hair. "I know, I saw him too." Hermione said calmly. "How can you be so calm?" Ron cried out flinging his hands down to his sides. "I'm not." She replied. Ron looked closer and saw that she was shaking violently, her fists clenched by her side.

Ron pinched the bridge of his nose. "We have to talk to him alone. Come on. Let's get back to the Burrow we can find him later today and we'll confront him their. Maybe he didn't want to blow his cover in front of his cop friends." Hermione reasoned. "Oh and next time Ron, when someone holds a gun to your head, you're supposed to stop moving and look scared. Or you'll get your head blown off and that won't be very nice no will it?"

----------------------------------------

Tom Riddle dropped his bag off in the corner of his small flat. The rooms were furnished with giveaway furniture that had springs poking out and the most horrible colors and patterns he'd ever seen. But it was the best he could do at the moment, and his friends had meant well when they gave it to him.

He ran a hand through his short black hair and stripped of his leather jacket and gun holsters leaving him in a black button-up t-shirt and a pair of jeans. He unclipped his badge and tossed it onto the counter with his keys, wallet and spare change that seemed to float from one pocket to the next.

That day had been long and hard. The Chief had given him hell for over an hour about "having a cup of tea and social hour" with two complete strangers in the middle of an active crime scene. Over and over again Tom had tried to explain that he had not been put in charge of watching the tape line and that he did not invite the strangers over to pounce on him and call him Harry, acting as if they knew him. But no matter what he said he still got his ear chewed off in volumes that reportedly had the second in command shaking. The only bright light in the dismal cloud of a day was that he had caught his thief.

Robert Collins had been a jewelry story thief and a creature of habit. Thus Tom found himself outside the same chain of stores Collins always robbed with said thief cuffed and in a police cruiser bound for the courts. Tom had collected his pay as well that day and had decided to treat his bare cupboards with food, a very special treat indeed.

As he put the food away, Tom found himself rubbing the thin lightning bolt shaped scar over his right eye. That man, the redhead had been staring at it the whole time he'd accused Tom of being some bloke called Harry.

_Probably owed the redhead money, this Harry person_…Tom reasoned as he tossed old cartons of Chinese out of his barren fridge. Redheads were even less likely to let such things go than Perkins, the gambling Meter Maid that Tom sometimes haggled with over a ticket on his car's hood. Tom knew from experience with Tina, wonderful girl, but she could hold on to the littlest thing for eons.

Tom groaned and finished putting the food away before popping the top on a soda and downing it in a few gulps. He couldn't wait till he could drink. Interning as part of the London Police just wasn't as fun if you couldn't drink.

He popped one of the microwave dinners in the microwave and padded out to the small T.V. he had in the living room. He flicked it on, kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt. He sprawled over the couch and watched the news till his dinner was ready. Life was relatively dull for Tom, but he liked it that way. A while ago he had no idea who he was, and now he had finally pieced his life back together. The simple things like being able to eat food without worrying he was going to die of some unknown food allergy or being able to write Tom Riddle on the ballet for his pay check would never pass unnoticed ever again.

Tom went about his nightly activities, researching the missing criminals, few in number as they were nowadays, took a shower, walked his dog Bandit, and climbed into bed. This was the part of the day Tom dreaded the most. Even as the clock struck midnight, he still lay in the same position hoping that he'd fall into a peaceful sleep without dreams as crazy as they had been the past couple of months. Some seemed like he was strung out or stoned beyond belief. Merepeople, spiders bigger then houses, people flying on brooms, it was all ridiculous.

Ever since he had been put on that stupid hypnotism test, trying to reawaken his lost memories, he'd been having the most insane dreams, most were nightmares he'd rather he never have to relive but some humorous like the one he'd been telling the guys about that day at lunch where he was swimming in a lake with fins and gills to rescue a…a redhead that looked just like that man at the scene that afternoon. But that was insane; people couldn't grow fins and gills to rescue redheads who seemed to be sleeping underwater while shark like creatures swam around with spears, singing something…something Tom had forgotten.

It was best if the dream was just forgotten. Just like everything else he thought he remembered. He had come to the conclusion that in his first life, he had been a drugged out punk and had almost completely lost interest in finding himself. It was best if the old life went in the way of his dreams…Forgotten.


	3. Chapter 3: Was Deaf

**Chapter 3: Was Deaf**

"He was pretty pissed yesterday."

"It's not our business."

"I'm disappointed in you Ginny. You had the makings of a prankster worthy of taking our place. What happened?"

"I lost interest. There are no more eyes for me to please. No one for me to make smile."

Ron's eyes opened very slowly to see Ginny, Fred and George staring around his desk, looking at the maps and drawings he'd been writing on.

"Get out!" Ron groaned making his offending siblings jump. All of his brothers, minus Percy had returned to the house. They said they were here to celebrate making it through the war, but even three years after the war's finish, they were still here. Ron knew that they were here to try and get him to forget Harry, to "help him in this difficult time".

They made lies and excuses for their being around every minute, trying to talk or get his mind off the hunt. Ron would have none of it. He ignored them and focused on his search. He and Hermione were on a crusade to find their best friend, even if the Ministry and the people had given up, even if Hermione herself had given up.

And look where their efforts got them.

He'd seen Harry that day in the coffee shop. He was positive they had and today he was going to find were Harry was staying and he was going to confront the boy. With the task in mind Ron got up pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, having given up on formal dress wear at the Ministry after the first three months.

He left his room and made his way down the stairs to where his mother and father were sitting with a very pregnant Flur. They were talking in hushed voices as Bill poured more tea into his cup and Fred and George sat in the living room, pretending to go over new plans for their chain of joke shops. Ron left without saying a word, just hoping to get to Hermione and then the office without blowing someone up, although it was more likely to be a reporter than his family.

He apperated to the Ministry and made his was to the Research section of the Library. Hermione spotted him and quickly excused herself from here boss's presence. She hurried over and began babbling about this and that. Finally Ron did the only thing he could to shut her up. He locked lips with her and kissed her hard and long.

When they broke apart, Hermione's eyes were still shut tight, her breaths coming in short pants. She smiled softly and Ron smiled back as she opened her eyes to see him. He took her hand and led her to the Department of Law Enforcement.

Ron was good friends with the Aurors in this department. They had spent a lot of their time there trying to track Harry, but they hadn't been back up for three months. Now they were returning to try again.

"Morning Ron." One of the Aurors called as they made their way up. Ron waved over his shoulder, never breaking commentary of his plan with Hermione. When they finally got up to the department, Ron made a b-line for the Aura Sensors who had charts and maps out waiting for him. "Morin' Ron" Ron turned around to see Ryan, his old partner in crime, behind him. "Miss. Granger." He bowed low over her hand before kissing it. Ron glared at him as Hermione giggled weakly.

"Going form my girl again huh, Ryan?" Ron snorted turning back to the maps, not really worried. "What's mine is your and yours is mine." Ryan chuckled, sipping strong tea from his mug before he was ready to tackle the stubborn redhead's task. He walked around to the other side of the table pulling out a few charts and spreading them over the ones Ron was looking at. "What are we looking for now? Same as always?" Ryan pulled out a few crystals used for scrying. Some of the older, more reliable, methods were still being used these days for some of the more important jobs.

Ron nodded and took the crystal from Ryan.

"Should we try Tibbet? Or maybe Turkey? We never made it to the 't's on our list." Ryan asked taking another gulp from his steaming mug, looking through some more maps.

"No. We're going to try right here in Jolly Old England." Ron smiled at Ryans dumbfounded look before focusing on Harry's magic and began to swing the crystal around in a wide circle. After a few minutes it hit home on a cluster of town houses. Ron smiled up at Ryan then suddenly got serious. "Don't tell anyone what you've seen here." Ryan nodded still gapping at the maps, hardly daring to believe it.

Ron grabbed Hermione's arm and led her to the apperition point with in the Ministry and appereated into the cluster of town houses that Harry was supposed to be staying in. The town houses were joined at the side but were built to appear like separate buildings. Each one had a forest green roof with red brick walls and a small deck on the second floor with a patio and steps leading to the street on the first. Each house hand a small square of lawn that homeowners attempted to fit a whole garden in.

The housed they had landed in front of was simply, with no exterior decorations except a small name plate proclaiming the mail box to be a Riddle box. There was a wickerwork chair on the patio and a small welcome mat at the foot of the door. But the house was otherwise unnoticeable.

Looking at each other, Ron and Hermione linked hands and apperated inside.

They landed on the second floor in a small bedroom with mismatched furniture all of which seemed older than the Malfoy line. Hermione left the bedroom while Ron looked around the adjoining bathroom.

The bedroom was a cluttered mess. A chest of draws was flung open with shirts flung over the draws and doors of the cherry colored wood. The bed was a small queen squashed into the corner with black sheets and a small white and forest green quilt pushed to the end of his bed, unmade and welcoming them to just climb in and sleep in the deep green pillows. The night stand beside it was the same cherry color of the dresser and had a pair of large binders under the drawer which was opened, a notebook not all the way inside.

Extracting the notebook Hermione looked at the open page to find an hastily written song in several colors of ink, as if someone had started writing it then come back several times latter to finish it.

Please, please forgive me,  
But I won't be home again.  
Maybe someday you'll look up,  
And, barely conscious, you'll say to no one:  
"Isn't something missing?"

You won't cry for my absence, I know -  
You forgot me long ago.  
Am I that unimportant...?  
Am I so insignificant...?  
Isn't something missing?  
Isn't someone missing me?

_[Chorus:_  
Even though I'm the sacrifice,  
You won't try for me, not now.  
Though I'd die to know you love me,  
I'm all alone.  
Isn't someone missing me?

Please, please forgive me,  
But I won't be home again.  
I know what you do to yourself,  
I breathe deep and cry out,  
"Isn't something missing?  
Isn't someone missing me?"

_[Chorus_

And if I bleed, I'll bleed,  
Knowing you don't care.  
And if I sleep just to dream of you  
I'll wake without you there,  
Isn't something missing?  
Isn't something...

_[Chorus_

She whipped a tear from her eye and turned back to the beginning of the notebook. Flipping through the scribbles that seemed to be retellings of dreams and more songs about people being forgotten or lost and no one caring, Hermione took in Harry's chicken scratch hand writing thinking about how much she had wanted to see the same scribbled double 't's, crossed as if they were an upper case 'h' and almost merging 'l's and 'u's.

"Where do you suppose he is?" Hermione whispered. Ron had left the bathroom and the two ventured down the stairs, which was made of a bare wood floor. They moved into the kitchen that sat adjacent to the living room to look in the cupboards, barren except for a few cans of food and a few pieces of fruit. Just then the door opened and Harry walked in with a large German shepherded on a leash with a mobile phone in one hand.

"No, Liz, I told you I'm not taking that case…. No, I'm not afraid of snakes…. Damn it! Stop comparing me to Indiana Jones!... No…. Fine you win I'll take…" He looked up to see Ron and Hermione standing in his kitchen looking through his draws.

"Bandit! Go!" Harry let the dog off the leash and the German shepherd bounded into the kitchen to tackle Ron who stunned him. Harry had hung up the phone and drawn his piece. "Don't move!" He walked forward to Bandit who lay on the ground. "What did you do to him?" He demanded still felling the dog's chest rise and fall.

"Harry! I just stunned him! Put the gun down!" Ron cried moving to block Hermione from the gun range, remembering that she had said it was dangerous. "It's you two! Why the hell don't you leave me alone?" Harry cried desperately.

"Harry! We're your friends!" Hermione wailed, tears sliding down her cheeks.

"FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! I'M NOT THIS HARRY GUY! MY NAME IS TOM! TOM RIDDLE!" Harry cried.

That had the desired effect. Both intruders stopped and stared at him.

"I am not your friend! And you must know it! If this is another sick joke by the guys at the office, I don't appreciate it! I thought we'd gotten over the whole 'new guy can't remember anything from before September.' You guys really need to give this a rest. I've got a new life."

Harry turned away having convinced himself that they were just pranksters. "This isn't a joke!" Hermione cried. "We're childhood friends. We went to school together. We fucking fought together!" Ron yelled, annoyed that his longtime friend was ignoring him. "Ron, he doesn't remember." Hermione whispered.

"This is really sick. You come here and pretend to be part of my past! It's bullshit! Do you know how long I've been looking for my past?!" Harry turned back to his stationary dog. "FIX HIM!" Ron jumped and turned to face Harry again.

"You're a wizard Harry! You are the savior of the Wizarding world! You defeated the most evil man in the entire world at the age of one! You killed a basilisk at the age of twelve! You created spells and you helped rebuild the world! You saved the Ministry and you got equal rights for werewolves! You're the biggest hero since Dumbledore!"

Ron stopped yelling when Hermione tugged on his sleeve. "What?!" She pointed down to the floor where Harry had passed out. "Prat!" Ron hissed lifting his old friend up over his shoulder and revived the dog before taking them both to Harry's car where Hermione climbed behind the wheel and drove them to the Burrow as it would be too dangerous to apperate with a dog and an unconscious man.


	4. Chapter 4: But Now Can Hear

**Chapter 4: But Now Can Hear**

Tom woke up in the backseat of his car with Bandit's head on his chest. The dog whined and Tom scratched his head shushing him to which Bandit responded with surprising abilities for the police's newest canine unit member. Bandit was particularly special dog. He was so attentive that Tom was sure he understood humans. He knew better than most senior members of the staff, what to do during an investigation. But he had problems working with everyone else, responded only to Tom's hands.

The poor dog had been found in an alley way, his albino nature making it easy for citizens to mistake him for a white wolf. The dog did have massive paws that indicated a closer relation to wolves than most canines, but he was too passive to be one. Tom had been part of the unit that brought him in. The dog had fallen asleep in his lap of the police curser and the two had worked together ever since.

Now the dog was keeping up a constant low throat growl, his muzzle pulled back in a snarl that Tom couldn't pet away. So Tom looked around him. He'd had the weirdest dream. Looking around he supposed that he had fallen asleep on a stake out. Then he noticed that there were two people in the front of his car.

The rickety piece of crap shook with each move they made and Tom was sure that they were going to tip it. Finally he sat up and saw it was the redhead and the brunet from the dream. So it wasn't a dream. Tom shushed Bandit and made to leave the car when they turned on him.

"Hold it!" The redhead cried brandishing a very unthreatening looking stick. Tom was tempted to laugh but decided to make a brake for it instead. As soon as his hand touched the doorknob however, he was frozen. No matter what he tried he couldn't move a muscle.

"Maybe next time you'll listen."

Tom's eyes strained to see the boy out of his peripheral vision but could only manage to see the worried face of the brunette he toted along with him.

The car started up beneath him and they pulled out of the driveway, the brown haired female at the wheel. Bandit was licking his face in understanding sympathy, again growling once and a while at their kidnappers.

Tom was thinking quickly. As a privet detective/ police intern Tom Riddle had been in more than one tight spot and had learned many a trick to get out of a pinch. But never had he ever been paralyzed. He had no idea what he was going to do, and in a moment of panic realized that he might actually die.

After so many close shaves with death, always ending with some brilliant escape plan, he had never really stopped to think that he could actually die. He had been an indestructible force to recon with in the police force and was held in high regard despite his foggy past and age. He'd shot through the ranks and wasn't really considered an intern in anything but paperwork. But never had he meet a force such as this, one where he couldn't escape, and it scared the shit out of him.

Giving himself a mental shake, Tom began to access his possibilities. In his pocket he had a cell phone, a dog leash, a bag and on Bandit he had a spiked dog collar. That would be enough. He hadn't been nicknamed MacGyver for nothing. As soon as he unfroze, he would get out of there and get a restraining order for the two, or submit them to a mental institution.

"Sirius is not going to like this." The female broke the quiet tension that filled the car.

"No one is going to like this." The redhead responded still starring avidly out the window, his eye flitting to the review mirror now and then to check on his frozen captive. Tom watched as pain flitted through his hardened eyes.

"_Don't let your mask slip Ron."_

Tom shook himself mentally. A fucking flashback? Now of all times?

"Three years. Three bloody years we've been looking for this prick and now we find him with his memory short-circuited. Rita's going to have field day."

Something about that name was familiar to Tom. He had no idea why such a random name could ring so many bells in his head but it did. Luckily for him he had a long ride to ponder it.

An hour later, Tom was still frozen in the back of the car but they had finally stopped. They were in the middle of now where, an old cottage in the wilderness. Tom had seen this TV special in many cop films. Whoever these people were, they were really unoriginal. The building however wasn't. It was crisp and clean but small and unnoticeably plain. The paint was peeling, but was still looking a bit fresh. The oil lamp at the end of the drive still flitted on as they drove past. There were few cobwebs in the windows or leaves in the long grass, giving the shack an occupied air but still one of foreboding stillness. No wind blew at the exterior shutters or made waves in the wheat grass, no crunch or gravel was audible nor the squeak of a lone rocker, aged in appearance before the house, nor the call of the birds roosting in the trees behind the house blocking out the view of the coast line, though it would have been impossible to hear the role of the waves anyway.

His captors got out of the car, and turned to look at him through the window. They had a conversation, most likely about how to get him into the house. In the end, the female took Bandit. As reluctant as the dog was to leave Tom, the mutt submitted in the end and followed her, his tail tucked between his legs, a position Tom hadn't seen his friend take while starring down a pack of Doberman and Pit-bull. Needless to stay he was a bit worried as the male took him in the most undignified manor, throwing him over his shoulder as if tome was a sack of meat, into the ramshackle hut.

"Hermione" the male called out as they crossed the threshold into the pine floored cabin. "Go back to the house and pick up photo albums, newspapers, anything you have that can convince him we do know him. Got to the Dursleys' if you have too, though I doubt they'll have anything."

She nodded and after tying up Bandit left. The dog lay down, his head on his front paws, a look of submission in his blue eyes.

The male dropped him on the couch, the only piece of furniture other than a coffee table and a desk with a light and a few books. The man took one of the many pillows on the couch and propped it up against the wall and sat down for the wait.

Tom let his eyes dart around the room, looking for his best escape route.

"Look familiar?"

Tom's eyes where drawn to the man as he watched him and his furtive looks about the room.

"It should. This is where we brought Death Eaters for questioning. We came here after Bill and Flure's wedding was crashed. This is where you promised Ginny you'd come back for her."

The scathing tone in his voice told Tom that he had some affiliation with the Ginny person, judging by his protective tone, an older brother most likely. That name also rang unfamiliar bells within his mind, a sensation he was becoming increasingly annoyed with.

Red hair flitted across his mind, as did deep chocolate eyes filled with warm laughter, dancing fingers waltzing through his hair, a gentle but coarse touch on his cheek. He could see a lake, a warm breeze wrapping around him as he clutched a curvaceous figure to him, the smell of marigolds and cedar wood filling his nose as red hair blinded his vision.

He was saved from contemplating on the sensation further by the return of the female, Hermione, who returned with a small crack Tom assumed came from the wood door she had obviously swept through, fast enough to make a small wind behind her. In her arms were several bundles filled with books and pictures and even a few toys.

She quickly handed these to the male, Ron, and moved to the couch. Hermione righted Tom so that he wasn't lying on his side any more. He thanked her with his eyes hoping that he could play up the sympathy card.

She turned her eyes resolutely from him and Tom knew the attempt to be futile. These people, despite their young age, had seen or done something, to make them hard to human suffering. Or they were just experienced kidnappers. That was quite possible. Heaven knew how many psychopaths he dealt with every day.

Ron was sitting in front of him now.

"We are going to prove to you that we know you."

He placed the photo albums around himself so that he could see them before he presented his story to Tom.

"This" he said lifting the first "Is your mother, your father and you." He pointed at a picture of a red haired women with brilliant green eyes and a man with black hair, messy and ruffled, and glasses, both of whom were holding a small baby with black hair and green eyes.

"You're mother's name is Lily" Hermione explained. "And your father's name is James. They were enemies all through school up until their final year when they got together."

"They died when you where one. They were killed by a man named Tom Marvolo Riddle, the most feared killer of your time." Ron pressed on ignoring the shocked look in Tom's eyes at the name.

"This is your Godfather." Hermione pointed at a longhaired biker man in a black tux at the marriage of his supposed mother and father.

"He's been the biggest factor in the search for you." Ron said looking sadly at the picture.

"This was your parent's best friend Remus Lupin, he taught us in third year and you two quickly bonded." Hermione smiled.

"This is us in third year." Ron said holding up a picture of three young friends, linking arms and smiling, another of the same three laughing. He held up another of them slightly older having a snowball fight, using snowmen as a shield from the onslaught of the others' attack.

One of him under the arms of the previously named men, Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, all three of them smiling.

Even older, the three stood with 'Harry' holding up a trophy, smiling falsely, more scars marring his face and less light coming from his eyes, but still with them.

The next one where shots, seemingly taken while the occupant of the photo was unaware of the fact.

Harry surrounded by a crowd of redheads, all of whom must have been Ron's family. They laughed, party hats on their heads, and presents and cake on the table before him.

The three of them by the lake with Ron and Hermione caught up in a kiss, showing that Harry was about to push both of them into the water as a blond haired girl with what looked like radishes on her ears, laughed from her seat in a lanky brown haired boy's lap.

Him at a desk, books open around him, face planted in the center, sleeping, Ron pointing and laughing over top of him.

Hermione bent over what looked like a chemistry table doing something, Ron mocking her behind her back.

All three at a wedding, dancing, laughing, happy.

"Life wasn't as easy as the pictures make it look. But we managed to get though with good spirits." Hermione smiled down sadly at a separate book. When she turned to show it to Tom, he saw that he was holding the most amazing looking red head he had ever seen. They were kissing, with an intimacy that could be seen through the picture, though it hardly did justice to it.

The next was a picture of him, buried in the red head's hair, her smiling, eyes closed, both barefoot beside a lake, books and odd articles of clothing spread out around them, flowers cropping up from the ground and tree branches around them. A long tactical reach out of the lake beside them squirting water at Ron who was sneaking up with the lanky brunette from before, both with water balloons in hand.

'That's Ginny.' He thought quietly. And though he wasn't quiet sure how he knew this, he was sure it was a fact. The image was that of the flash he had had upon hearing her name.

"Now do you believe us?"

Tom's eyes were wide.

"Unfreeze him Ron." Hermione whispered.

A moment latter Tom could move again, but he had no intention of going any where. That was definitely him in the pictures and that was definitely them.

"We went to school together?" He asked looking up from the photo album he'd picked up to the delighted faces of the two before him. His fingers traced over the young redhead's face, her delight evident as she collected a sixteen year old version of himself, both dress in odd clothing of gold and red, into her arms brooms at their feet, a cheering crowd blurred out in the background. It was so odd, the pleasure on his face so real, so honest. He didn't think he could ever see that look in his proximity, but there it was.

He wanted it back. He wanted all of it back. It wasn't fair. He'd listen. If only it meant he could have it back.

**A.N: I would like to thank Black Frost Dragon for Noting that I didn't mention that the lyrics in the previous chapter were not accounted for. They are from Evanescence's Missing. I do not own these lyrics, but am using them to create a mode.**

**Thanks to all reviewers!**

**Dutifully yours,**

**LastCornerStone**


	5. Chapter 5: Was Blind

**Chapter 5: Was Blind**

Tom walked into the office the next Monday, sleep deprived and running on caffeine. He had a coffee mug in hand and a stack of photo albums under his arms. Five o'clock shadow had been living on his face since twelve and he had large bags under his eyes. He was burning both sides of his rope and was quickly approaching the center but he still have a lot too do. Too much to miss work in favor of sick leave.

"Whoa! Riddle, who hit you with a truck and drove away?"

Tom turned to look who had called to him so he could give them a piece of his mind, and his more practiced hand gestures. He had been getting quite good after all the jokes about his skills and past but the office had grown used to him and the man that came with them.

Behind him stood Tina. The fiery redhead stood with a new cup of coffee, which she offered up as a peace offering. He took it gratefully as well as the kiss she offered but redirected her lips from his own to his cheek. 

"Sorry babe, I think I'm catching something."

Long nights without sleep and hardly any food could do that to you. It was a sate he had been living in for a while and had grown accustomed to but it appeared to have finally caught up to him. When he had returned to his apartment with Bandit and the mass of photo albums barrowed from Ron and Hermione, he had been half hoping that the magical cupboard fairies would have visited his house but was plum out of luck.

Tina cooed over him and walked him to his office where his chief also commented on his appearance. He forced a smile and sat his stack on the desk.

"Is the Record Library open yet?" He asked trying not to draw attention to himself.

"Sure, trying to place a face to a name?" Derrick smiled, leaning back in his chair the chief badge bulging of the man's rather plump yet still trim figure, Tina next to him in the extra chair that sat between the two desks.

"Yeah, and check up on a story."

"What's it for?"

"Well, I might have a lead on my past." Harry…no TOM said rubbing his neck, gesturing to the photo albums on his desk.

"That's great kid. You have some time now that you brought in that jewelry store thief, so go a head and good luck. TAKE TINA WITH YOU!" He shouted as Tom left. 

Tina hurried to catch up with him.

"A lead huh? Friend or family?" She asked taking one of the books from him.

"Kinda both. Their friends but apparently they're also my second family as my parents died when I was one year old."

"Oh baby I'm sorry." She said her smile slipping off her face. 

"It's okay. I don't think I knew them before the memory loss, as I was only one at the time." Tom shifted the books from one arm to the other so he could push his glasses up his face farther. He sniffed and turned back to Tina. "Apparently, I meet these guys when I was eleven and we've had adventures together since our first year at school together."

"Are you still taking to them? Meeting them? They're the key to your past Tom!"

"They said my name was Harry."

Tina paused. "Harry. That's a nice name. Suits you a lot more than Tom does."

"They also said that Tom was the name of the man who killed my parents."

Tina gasped. "Why do you think you thought it was your name?"

"Apparently I had been hunting down this man since I was eleven." He sniffed again. "Something about seeking revenge and saving someone. I suppose it was because my world had revolved around him for so long, I was able to keep the name somewhere where the memory loss couldn't take it."

"Oh, come here Tom…I mean Harry."

She stopped him dead in the middle of the busy hall way and hugged him, kissing his cheek and stroking his hair. "Baby, can we do this some other time?" Tom begged her.

"I'm sorry." She said baking off.

They made it to the record room without another incident.

Harry sat down at one of the many computers, scanned one of the pictures, one with his mother and father in it into the system and started a search.

After a few minutes of silence only broken by Tom's sniffing, the green light went off and 'Positive Match' filled the screen.

"James Harold Potter and Lillian Rose Evans-Potter, deceased. Buried in Godrics Hallow. One son, Harry James Potter, status, unknown."

"That might be you." Tina whispered beside him. Tom looked up the file on the boy named Harry and went off on a hunt for his records. The only reason the boy was in their records was because his parent's case was an unsolved. With no apparent cause of death, the police had kept tabs on the boy incase the file was reopened.

He returned to Tina with the file in hand.

Coughing silently Tom groaned and sat down, flipping through the file as Tina's hands massaged his back.

"This is me Tina." He said after a while. "My birthday is July 31st and my only living relatives were the Vernon Warren Dursley and Petunia Tulip Evans-Dursley and their son Dudley Vernon Dursley, whose care I was placed in after my parents died."

Tina hugged him from behind.

"This is great baby."

Tom…Harry smiled. Harry James Potter was alive.

Returning to the office, Harry and Tina broke the news to Derrick who congratulated Harry and made the call to make the changes to the records, still snickering at the name of his cousin which had the office in fits for a while once the news was spread.

"_My ickle duddy-kins."_

Harry's mind tried to place a face to the name but drew a blank. He began to laugh and once hand had shared the memory with the other guys in their wing, laughter could be heard from three floors down.

Harry, while thrilled with the news, was finding it harder and harder to concentrate. Not only was his mind reeling with this new information, but it was also stuffy and thick with congestion setting in. The constant laughter was invoking an unforgiving headache and his arm was getting tired of shaking people's hands

After an hour or two in which he got nothing done, Derrick, who had grown tired of his sniffing, sent him home with Tina.

Harry fumbled with the keys for a bit before he could actually fit them into the door and let himself and his girlfriend into the house.

"Make yourself at home. I'm afraid I can't offer you much to drink or eat but there's coffee and crackers in the kitchen. Help your…your…"He sneezed. A sure sign he was going to be floored with whatever he had. "Uhg. Sorry, help yourself."

Harry climbed the stairs, ignoring Tina's call of "Bless you." 

"So my name is Harry James Potter." He whispered. "I should have looked up those two."

Depression began to sink in. What if they were nutcases? What if all this was a lie and it was a giant coincidence? What if he wasn't getting his life back?

Harry…Tom…Harry

Gripping his head, the nameless one rocked back and forth on his bed, half way through the process of changing.

"Harry? Are you okay baby?"

"I'll be down in a minute Tina." He called, relaxing into his bed a bit.

He finished getting dresses and slugged back down the stairs to the den where Tina had two cups of tea and a warm blanket waiting for him.

"So, tell me about yourself Harry Potter." Tina smiled, burrowing under her boyfriend's arm.

"Well, I grew up with a family called the Dursleys. I think I might pay them a visit when I have time off from a case. Apparently I went to a school with the two people from the scene the other day. The man's name was Ron, and the women's name is Hermione.

"My Godfather is Sirius Black."

"The deranged killer?" Tina gasped.

"Apparently he's innocent." Harry shrugged and coughed into his fist away from the redhead in his arms.

"He and a man named Remus Lupin raised me, not like guardians, but whenever I was with them I was the happiest. The were my father's best friends. Apparently, the reason Sirius went to prison was because he was framed for the murder by their friend Peter Petigrew." He took a long sip of his tea, his eyes drooping.

"I had several run-ins with my parent's killer over the years at school. I was apparently kidnapped by him in my fourth year but somehow escaped." His head lulled back onto the couch back.

"I finally killed him three years ago. The day I lost my memory apparently, as I never returned for the…the…" Harry was forced back into wakefulness by the force of the sneeze, not helping his spirits any. "Sorry love." He whispered quietly, already falling back asleep.

"I never returned for the celebration." He finished, his eye closed. Tina took the mug from his hand and set it down on the coffee table.

"They…they've been looking for me…for three years." Harry whispered as Tina helped him lie out on the couch and took off his glasses.

"Looks like I'll have some family of yours to meet after all." Tina whispered.

Harry smiled in his sleep as she ran her fingers through his hair.

"I love you Harry Potter." She kissed his scared forehead before leaving, locking the door behind her.

----------------------------------------

"Ron, be quiet!"

"Sorry Hermione."

"He looks terrible."

"We must have told him a bit too much too soon."

"Look at his cupboards. There empty. And the bags under his eyes. They're huge!"

"Brilliant observation Rom. Have a cookie."

"Yay!" 

Harry groaned and sat up.

"Oh Harry did we wake you up?"

He blinked blearily at them before reaching out for his glasses only to have them pushed onto his face, so he could see Ron and Hermione.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked, her face the picture of concern.

Harry groaned. This was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. He felt sick as a dog-apologies to Bandit- and really felt like his head was the size of a balloon. He didn't want to register more about his life.

"How did you two get in?" Harry coughed, sitting up slowly.

"Same way we always do." Ron smiled holding out the stick.

Harry had to snort which made his cough worse, making it even harder to breath.

"Here." Hermione handed him a glass of water and some pills which Harry popped expertly into his mouth, ignoring the pain in his throat as he swallowed.

"What Ron means to say is we got in with magic."

Harry nearly coughed the pills back up, and deeply regretted not looking at the label on them first.

"Magic huh?" He sniffed. "And I suppose you two are on good terms with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny?" He chuckled lightly and leaned back, resting his head against the back of the couch.

Ron had a questioning look on his face and Hermione was looking down at Harry.

"Harry, we really can do magic. Watch."

She pulled out her own stick and made Harry's coffee table float around the room.

"So where are the wires?" Harry chuckled, chalking the whole incident up to the approaching fever having finally arrived and nesting in his brain.

"This is real Harry." Hermione said unwearyingly. "Watch again."

With a flick of her wrist she turned the table into a pig, and another flick had it back again.

Harry couldn't fight that one.

"So you guys are wizards?" He slurred.

"Well technically I'm a witch, but yes." Hermione said, obviously relieved he was taking it so well. "And you are too."

"Well, where's my…my…HepChoo! HeChoo! Urg, sorry. Where's my stick thingy?" He asked, eyes rolling up to her chocolate brown ones.

Hermione and Ron traded looks.

"We don't know Harry. You took that wand to the grave for all we knew." Ron whispered.

"Oh." Harry simply stated, obviously unconvinced.

Silence filled the space between them.

"Harry?"

"Hum?"

"Do you remember anything?" Hermione knelt down next to him.

"I remember lots of green light and a big snake." Harry smiled giddily, fully accepting the fevered images he had conjured up to help ease the transition.

Just then a knocking sounded at the door.

"Harry? It's Tina. I brought you some soup."

"TINA!" Harry cried jovially. "Hurry or you'll miss the wizards! They've come to collect me!" He laughed insanely as Hermione and Ron clamped their hands over his mouth.

"Harry, baby? Are you okay? Can you open the door?"

"There's a key in the hedgehog footbrush Tina!" He sang after clawing Ron and Hermione's hands off.

"We got to get out of her Hermione!" Ron whispered. From out of his pocket he brought out two brooms and enlarged them. "We can't apperate. The ministry will have our hid." Hermione nodded and the two mounted up in the kitchen.

"Hurry Tina! The wizards are leaving on their broomsticks!" Harry laughed, swiveling around in his place on the couch.

Hermione and Ron had just made it out of the window when Tina managed to get the door open.

"Awwwwwwwwwwww! Tina you missed them!" Harry laughed.

"Are you okay Harry?" Tina asked strolling over to the couch. "You haven't gotten high off Nyquil again have you?" She put her hand to his forehead. "You've got a fever baby."

"HepChoo! HetChoo! Thank the Princess. Whatever would I have done without your all powerful skills in observation?" Harry cried.

"Blow your nose Harry." Tina laughed.

"Yes, almighty Queen." Harry laughed accepting the tissue from her with a mock bow before turning away to do as she commanded.

"Let's get you up to bed. The guys at the station are never going to believe this." She laughed helping Harry to his feet while trying not to laugh at his impersonation of a duck singing the "Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" song.

**AN:**

**I feel I use the sick Harry as a scapegoat too often. But in this case it adds humor to the situation so I guess I can live. I hope I haven't annoyed anyone with the wait. I just spent three days in a log cabin without a working microwave let alone computer.**

**Happy Easter to all…..supposing you celebrate it and if not…..well happy weekend! Or St. Patrick's Day….Yeah……..that'll work.**

**Faithfully yours,**

**LastCornerStone**


	6. Chapter 6: But Now Can See

Family Types: Year 2

**Chapter 6: But Now Can See**

Harry sat up and promptly tipped out of his bed bruising his shoulder.

"Owww." He whined.

A thundering noise alerted Harry to someone rushing up his stair case. Harry rolled back to the bed, reached under his mattress and pulled out a .38 millimeter. Standing up, looking ferocious in his sleeper pants, Harry trained the gun on the doorway, snatching his glasses up off the side table.

"Harry?"

Tina came rushing into the room and stopped when she met the barrel of Harry's gun.

"Jesus! Tina! You scared me." He put the gun down and collapsed onto the bed.

"Oh Harry. You scared the shit out of me!" She cried flinging her arms around him. She was dressed in a warm brown sweater and dark blue jeans, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail and beaded earrings hanging down from her ears.

"You scared me." He defended himself, gathering her up in his arms.

"You're fever was so high last night I almost took you to the hospital. But then with the whole name and record problem, I just called the M.E and he gave you some pills. I was so scared."

"Oh God Tina, I'm so sorry baby. I should have taken better care of myself." Harry apologized.

"Yes, you were a right prick, but you're my prick and now I'm going to take care of you." Tina said, letting him lean his head on her shoulder.

Harry closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. He just wanted to stay like this forever. His cold had other plans.

He pulled away from her and sneezed into his elbow.

"Here Love" Tina held out a handkerchief which Harry accepted gratefully. "You should be fine in a couple days, but the M.E says you might not be able to do much thanks to the amount of energy required to fight off the fever. So I'll be here all day to-"

She was cut off by the sound of her pager.

"Damn it! Can't a girl take care of her sick boyfriend any more?" She looked at the pager and blanched.

"I'm sorry Harry. They really need me on this one. I'll only be gone an hour or two." She promised, kissing him on the head before rushing out the door with a lingering "Call me" hanging in the air.

Harry smiled at the sound of her car peeling out off the drive.

He wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep, but he knew that he didn't wake up too long afterwards by the sound of two pops.

"Harry?"

He groaned into his pillow.

"Can't you people leave me alone? I'm sick for Christ's sake."

"That's why we're here." Ron and Hermione appeared in his line of sight. Hermione was carrying a steaming mug of something that smelled quite foul.

"You need to drink this. It will help you feel better." She said pushing the mug on him.

"What is it? A potion?" Harry asked sarcastically.

When no answer greeted him he looked at their serious faces.

"Oh come on!" He cried. "You two are not wizards! That is not a potion! You can't fly on brooms and I'm not going to drink it."

"Harry, please!" Hermione pushed. Ron gave him a firm look.

"No. For all I know its arsenic."

Ron gave Hermione a weird look.

"Poison." She said simply.

"Harry we're your friends, we'd never poison you!" Ron cried indignantly.

Hermione climbed onto the bed and straddled him.

"What are you doing?" Both Harry and Ron cried out in horror.

"You're taking this one way or another." She said, suddenly fierce, the good girl gone from her attitude.

She handed the mug to Ron and prided Harry's mouth open while her legs held Harry's arms pinned at his sides and his chest still. Ron dumped the stuff down his throat and the two clamped their hands down over his mouth forcing him to swallow it.

He felt like his head was on fire; in fact he heard whistling and saw smoke come from his ears.

When everything was over and done, Hermione climbed off him and Harry sat up, debating whether he should call the police or poison control. In the end, he settled on slumping defeated into his bed. He didn't have the energy for this. Looking up at the bushy haired female and her partner, he let his brain entertain the idea that they could be telling the truth.

The idea was so crazy he had to laugh at himself.

"You really have change." Ron whispered. "In the old days if anyone had tried that, your mouth would have been more secure than Azkaban, Gringotts and Hogwarts combined." He looked around sadly, unnoticing Harry's confused look.

"Harry I know that this is a lot at one time." Hermione started, slowly feeling out with words of sympathy and kindness, testing the waters for the real truth.

"But you really have to believe us. We're you're first friends. We know you better than anyone else. We know you favorite food is Stake and Kidney Pie and that your favorite dessert is Treacle Tart. We know that your uncle and aunt were horrible people and that you cousin used you for target practice."

"We know why you go into hero mode every time someone's in danger." Ron butted in. "We know that you're secretly afraid of bunny slippers because you had a dream were you had tea with Voldemort in a fuzzy bathroom and pink bunny slippers and Snape was serving tea and gold and red Gryffindor lion shaped marshmallows and Lockhart was headmaster of Hogwarts and Umbridge was Minister of Magic and Lucius was your foot stool and-" Hermione clamped a hand over his mouth.

"You did all that in one breath." Harry commented, surprised. "Don't you usually do that?" He asked pointing his finger from Ron to Hermione then back again. "You two really have spent too much time together." He pulled himself out of the bed and padded to the bathroom.

"What did you just say?" Hermione asked shocked.

"I asked if it wasn't you who did that all the time. You know speak years of information out in one breath. I thought you always did that, not him." Harry said poking his head out the door of the bathroom.

"Oh HARRY!" Before Ron could stop her from further embracing their friend, she had jumped on him, pulling him into a hug that could put Mrs. Weasley to shame.

Harry just stood their, pants half way down his legs.

"Hermione…" he whispered, mortified.

She blushed a shade of red that Harry had only seen…who was it? It was some fat white guy, bigger than a rhinoceros with a color spectrum of the rainbow.

"Harry. We are your friends. We know your whole life's story, and we know that you are a wizard." She pleaded with him to listen, her great coffee colored eyes pleading with his hollowed emerald ones. So vibrant, so full of life and love and understanding. And all she wanted was for him to believe her, to go out on a limb and believe that everything he had seen in the past couple of days was real.

He sighed and dropped his head into his hand, gagging the rate a thicket was replacing his five o'clock shadow.

"Okay. Let's pretend for a minute that you aren't pulling my leg." He whispered his tone one of tenuous belief. "What can you do to prove this to me beyond a shadow of a doubt?"

"I think I can help you get your memories back. It will take some negotiation, but I think I can manage it." She was positively glowing as s few items around the room began to rattle on their perches.

Ron was smiling from behind her, true happiness flooding his mind from places he had previously locked away. His mental black boxes were opening up and all the personal moments he had ever had with his best friend were flooding his mind's eye.

He could see again.

He smiled wider when he watched a small spark reenter his old friend's eye as he stood in the center of his bedroom in naught but a pair of flannel pajama pants, Hermione hugging him. And in that moment, Ron wondered if Harry could see the scene from their seventh year too.


	7. Chapter 7: Was Lost

**Chapter 7: Was Lost**

Harry pushed around his rooms, running a comb pointlessly through his hair with one hand the other rubbing at his temples, trying to forestall the pounding headache that had accompanied the bazaar snippets of memories that had plagued his night.

It had been two days since Ron and Hermione had visited him last.

On their last visit they had brought more photo albums, with moving pictures this time, and began to put names to faces. Harry's mind was quickly filled with family connection and stories of unfamiliar travels and trials he had with strange people.

Hermione had been quick to fill him in on Hogwarts but put the most emphasis on her plan to retrieve his memories. Apparently there was a magical form of mind reading, not that that surprised him in the least, which let one wizard see another's memories... unless the wizard had magical defensive walls that he, apparently, had never been able to erect. According to his conspirators, one of his friends from this war held sway over a professor, whom was a master of the art...though the look on Hermione's face and the skeptical sniff Ron made at the suggestion told Harry he wasn't particular friends with this master.

The boy's name was Tonks while the Professor's name was Arthur….no wait. Arthur was Ron's father and Tonks was…his mother?

Harry growled and messaged his head with the heel of both palms. Throwing down the comb, Harry let Bandit out into the small square of yard behind his flat, popping a Pop-tart into the toaster. Dashing out, he snatched up his suit jacket and keys, buttoned his sleeves, and looked himself over in the mirror before running a hand through his hair to make it stick up in a more uniformed direction.

If you can't beat them with gel and a fine toothed comb, deal with them the best you could. Damned cow-licks.

Snatching up his Pop-tart he stuck it in his mouth and let Bandit back inside.

"Let's go Bandit!" Harry called breaking the Pop-tart in half and giving the German Sheppard one half to scarf down while eating the other half himself. The team piled into Harry's car and speed off to the Police Station, hardly noticing that the car floated half an inch off the ground.

His head was throbbing, so many thoughts and images spinning around in a space already cramped with on-going investigation and paper work notes. Sighing, Harry silently wished he had never found out about Ron and Hermione and Lord What's-His-Face, or about wizards and Hogwarts or anything that had come to his attention in the last week.

He had begun to notice strange things after meeting the couple from his past. He began to notice stores lined with a spider web of glowing light that he had previously thought to be decorations, he noticed people simply vanish from one place and not reappear anywhere nearby. Sometimes he got the feel that he was being watch, and people he had once thought to be criminals would divert their eyes whenever he caught theirs. He also noticed that now that he was more aware of magic, it seemed to happen all around him.

As he passed through the Police Station's double doors, the one person he didn't want to see appeared to be waiting for him.

"Riddle!" Sylvester Snap was standing, arms crossed, and his face contorted in, what had to be the most pissed off look known to man kind. Harry had never seen any one pull off a more vindictive look without ending up just looking like they had swallowed a lemon tree. His hooked nose seemed to draw Harry's eyes, unsurprising since the protruding appendage probably had its own damn gravitational pull. The black holes that served for eyes looked out over it, seemingly unaware of the shear monstrosity of the mass before him.

"What did I do now Snap?" Harry sighed, pushing past him to the elevator, Bandit on a tight led as a low rumbling growl escaped his partner's lips.

"Paper work Riddle! Or did you forget? Just because captain gave you leeway to work your pathetic way through that mad house you call a mind for answers I could have given you, being a Juvenile Delinquent Warden myself, does not mean that you can get behind the paper work on the Jewelry Store thefts." He smirked, his hooked nose making his leering eyes look like one's you were more likely to see on the head of a vulture then a JDW.

Harry grimaced. The man thought he was so good. Flaunting the position over Harry's head. He seemed to mention it at any point he could manage and ended up sounding like a broken record playing out of a bent bell. Even his insults were becoming ridiculously laden with the continuous reminders.

"Last time I checked, Snap, your division didn't over see my paper work habits." Harry hissed.

"I am a superior to you Riddle, which means that I oversee what ever I think needs to be overseen." The man sneered, his greasy black spiked locks falling to cast shadows over his already cavernous face, giving it a demonic air.

Bandit growled menacingly, as he and Harry climbed into the elevator, trying to close the doors on the elder officer. His hand stopped the doors however and Snap slipped into the elevator.

"Don't think you can loose me that easily." Snap smirked down his crocked nose. "I have little to do today but keep you company till you fill out that paper work. My next case is an abuse victim's trial and that's not till four."

Harry froze up, a scene flashing before his eyes.

_A fat man with an impossibly purple face sneered in at him. A ridding crop in one hand, his other clutching Harry's shoulder. There was a fat replica of the man behind him, a bloody knife gripped in his pudgy hand, twin wicked sneers on both faces._

"Touched a nerve, did I?" Snap pushed, eyebrows raised in pleasure as he continued to torture. "Something bother you about abuse victims _Tom_?" Snap stressed the name, pushing forward tenuously; weary of Bandit's salivating chops.

"Pick on a few victims in the old days Tom?" He pushed forward even more.

Suddenly the elevator doors dinged open and Harry scampered out, Snap still on his heels.

"You did, didn't you? Something in your past you found out Tom? Something ugly? You never had problems with abuse before." Snap prodded.

"Snap. I'm warning you!" Harry spat.

"What? Going to do the same thing you did to that little boy?" Snap was inches from his face, his foul breath raising hairs off Harry's neck to stand starch stiff.

Harry snapped. He lashed out, going to punch the man only to find him flung into the air by his ankle.

"FUCKING HELL!" Harry cried, Bandit barking mad. "Get down! THIS ISN'T FUNNY SNAP!" He hollered, no longer worried of being discovered thanks to the remoteness of their location. He would shout and curse at Snap all day even if he wasn't play practical jokes. Up here the only person able to hear anything was a nearly deaf man working reception and a cranky old secretary working on ancient filing too important to be abandoned for a second of curiosity.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!" Snap cried.

Harry panicked and fled. He reached his office at top speed and locked himself inside with Bandit cowering under his desk in the bomb position that had been drilled into his tiny brain. Harry was rocking in his spindly chair, hidden behind the walls of his cubical, a wooden door closing off the roofless square.

As he shook, he noticed that the things on his desk vibrated like they were in an earth quake. Crying out in anguish his slammed his head into his desk. His vision blurred and the objects stopped vibrating. Carefully Harry slid himself under the desk with Bandit, the pair of them huddled into the back off the desk, Bandit waiting for the release word, Harry waiting till he was sure that moving again wouldn't set him off again.

It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault.

He sighed and took in deep breaths. He didn't want this. He didn't need to be any weirder than he was. He didn't want to be anything other than Tom Riddle, the Police Intern with the blank slate past and a German Shepard. That, his flat, and his girl were all he needed, not any of this drama. He didn't need to be making earthquakes or hauling people into the air by their ankles when he was pissed.

He could beat up a guy with his hands. He didn't need some freaky magic scarring the shit out of his attacker, freaking him out so that he ran away from a fight. Thinking about it, that episode with Snap was the first time he had fled a fight, or a potential fight, and it wasn't even because the other guy was better then him or he was out gunned. No it was because he had some freaky voodoo going on within him.

Fucking wizards. Why couldn't they just keep their fucking magic and their fucking heroes and problems? He didn't want anything to do with them. Groaning Harry dropped his head into his hands again and desperately wished that if anything, Ron and Hermione hadn't cured his cold. He wanted to be at home figuring this out. But no, he was hiding under a desk in a small cubical on an abandoned floor of an already vacant building.

He was tired, he was confused. He was lost in his own mind and everything that was happening was making it that much worse. Images wished around his head, spinning through his mind's eye with blaring quality but so fast that he couldn't put objects or faces to names.

His head spun and he fell back against the underside of his desk, hopping that a momentary glance at them would make them go away. He just wanted things to go back to the way they were, before all this craziness. He just wanted to come to work and clock Snap a good one in the jaw then proceed to Bandit's training without having to worry about blowing something up.

He was unsure of how long he sat there and even less sure of the number of people that had knocked on his door to somehow find that the lockless door wasn't budging. He slowly regained his breath, returning to a state of somewhat calm appearance. Climbing out from under the desk, Harry released Bandit and straightened his tie, reaching into his coat to move the gun holster away from the irritated area it had been poking at.

He peered out of the door before leading Bandit out. He couldn't live like this. He couldn't be alone in the office, his old life. He knew too much. He hurried to the elevator without running into anyone and had made it down to the third floor before he was joined by a podgy desk clerk taking an arm full of files down to archives. His thick round glasses sat on his nose as a bead of sweat played with his reseeding hairline, dodging in and out of the thinning hairs but never fully crossing the line.

Maybe he had been staring at it for too long but it almost seemed to Harry that he was moving the bead. He felt like he was sending it swirling in and out of the black hairs on the shorter man's head. With every drop of his eyes, he would release it to fall a little closer to the line before returning his gaze to the droplet and pulling it back into the middle-aged man's hair.

Suddenly the man looked at him, a hard glare that brought a blush to Harry's face and made him drop the bead of sweat down the man's small nose. The doors seemed to take forever to open. The bell seemed to ring an hour before the metal cage was drawn back to let him out. He rushed from the annoyed desk clerk and, with Bandit on his heels, hurried to the garage.

"Give me a curser and a destination." Harry breathed to the young brunette behind the counter with the keys on racks behind her.

"Mr. Riddle. Perfect timing as usual. They just requested a canine unit down at the water front ports. I swear you're always in the right place at the right time. First with that raid were Tina found you, and then with the Jewelry Store thief, and now this. It's like you've got some magical homing device." She laughed handing over the keys to the number 13 cruiser and placed her head in the palm of her hand, propping herself up with her elbow, batting her heavily blackened eyes at him.

He shifted nervously, tipped his head to show his thanks and rushed into the garage. Bandit bounded to the number 13 cruiser, happily dancing, ready to get to work. The hour or two he spent under the desk probably catching up to him. Harry smiled and opened the passenger door for the mutt before letting himself into the driver's seat.

He radioed his response to the team requesting the canine unit and peeled out of the lot. He flicked on his siren and was soon floating into old routine. He had been lucky enough to get his own cruiser as well as his own jobs. He had been quick to learn everything else, taking to it so naturally, officers claimed he must have worked for a branch of defense or police work before his black out.

How wrong they all were.

Apparently he had been fighting an invisible war before he'd lost his memories. And the fact that he had quickly become one of the best shots in the force told him that he had been one then too. He could only imagine the things that he had done. After all, he had been a weapon.

He wasn't stupid. He could read between the lines of crap Ron and Hermione feed him. They stated he was revered. He new he it was really that he was feared. He could tell by the muscles that were already built on his chest, arms, and legs, everywhere. He was built for war and the lightning fast reflexives had been drilled into his scull on a daily bases, if his instructor's opinion was worth anything.

As he careened around curves and nearly rode over a party of tailgaters, Harry lost himself to thoughts and allowed his body to register obstacles on its own. He soon found himself pulling into the marina and had parked between a group of warehouses. He let bandit out, hooking the normally free dog back to his leash.

As he hurried to where the arresting officer had indicated, Harry found himself reliving memories.

_A stone bathroom with high walls and slights of light filtering in from the ceiling. A group of sinks in the center of the room, each with a mirror hang over it, creating a sort of alter. To the left, two rows of stalls each were facing each other. Definitely not a men's' room. Then out of no where a translucent figure of a girl hovered before him._

"_If you die down there…You're welcome to share my cubical." She flirted gesturing to the stall beneath her. Then Harry found himself turning to face the sinks whispering "Thanks Myrtle." It was then that he noticed one of the sinks had lowered to the floor opening up to a tunnel of some kind._

Where it lead Harry would never know. For at that moment, he approached the first officer on the scene and was forced to focus on work. He let Bandit go, issuing commands. Together they hurried around the bathroom….no the warehouse...it was a warehouse... together, just like old times. Not ghosts flirting with him, no friends spontaneously cropping up at the least convenient times, and best of all, no Snap breathing down his neck.

Harry let a smile grace his figures as Bandit let loose a loud series of barks. Harry rushed over to the hound. He was forced to wrench away however when the sound of gun fire signaled his pull back from the stack of drugs now visible from the toppled crate Bandit guarded.

"Bandit! Stand down." Harry commanded, drawing his gun as he hunched against a large crate. The dog immediately dodged behind a pair of crates and a few over hanging tarp, hunkered down and watched, paws over his head. Harry had never seen any other dog do that but as far as he had known Bandit had been doing it since birth.

Peeking out when the barrage of automatic fire ceased, Harry took a tentative crawling step out from behind the crate and maneuvered himself closer to the drug stash. He could hear back up running, splitting its forces between the handcuffed dealers and helping the intern. It was a commonly known fact that the last officer that had let Tom Riddle get shot had ended up with a bullet wound of his own from the untraceable bullets of Tina's .45 magnum, a gun big enough to put a hole in someone large enough to drive a dump truck through.

Harry was returning fire now and had already clipped the shooter in the wrist and arm making the man change the Uzi over to his over hand. Harry knew he had been hit but at this moment adrenaline was enough to keep him moving without fully comprehending the pain. He had moved closer and could now make out the shooter's appearance.

Blonde hair. Long blonde hair. Familiar and yet so foreign. Just then a second canine units' dog came bounding out, clambering up the mountain of crates.

_Crying. Someone was crying in the bathroom. Myrtle was hovering over the blonde framed by the door and the wall Harry peeped through. A boy, blonde, turned, surprised outrage on his face, he raised a stick a word on his lips "Cruci-" He didn't wait, unsure of what he was doing, he had his own stick in his hands, a word upon his lips and then…_

"Sactumsempra"

Blood splattered from the gun man's chest just as the second police dog hit him. He toppled off his perch, the second canine unit's mutt falling back coated in blood. The man fell to the ground, a waterfall of blood following him and splashing to the concrete like sick water colors, bathing him, Bandit, Harry and the surrounding creates in the warm liquid.

Harry froze, shocked. Other units were bustling about him but he couldn't hear them. He couldn't make out their blurred face or feel Bandits warm pink tongue licking the blood from his face. He couldn't turn himself from the body, eyes wide enough to swallow the Grand Canyon.

He had done that. His memory, his power, he had done that. Without even really thinking he had cut down a man, a terrible drug lord but a man none the less. And with a look and a word, he had slashed deep into his chest, almost three-fourths of the way through. That much he could discern from all the babble as the paramedics packed him and Bandit up and the gun men was toted away in a body bag.

"Too deep...No way he would have made it..."

"...Put the dog down..."

"To think, a dog could do so much damage..."

No, it wasn't a dog. Harry was shaking, eyes unfocused, hands mechanically petting Bandit, clutching him like a life vest. No it wasn't a dog.

He had to get help. What if he did this again? What if it was with a friend? What if the next time he confronted Snape it wasn't with Levicorpus-

Harry shook his head, as if to take a double take on his own words. Who the Hell was Snape and what the blood fuck was Levicorpus?

Suddenly the paramedic was hanging in the air by his ankle. Panicked, Harry ran though a list of random words that suddenly popped into his head until the screaming man had been dropped on his head.

"What the bloody hell-"

"Obliviate!" Harry cried, flinging his open hand in front of the paramedic's face. A dazed looked crossed over him and he and his partners and the driver returned to their business like nothing had happened.

Harry shuddered and took a firmer hold on Bandit, sure that the spells would carry him away. That was the last straw, if he couldn't even think the bloody words without something terrible happening to him, then he was going to have to take Ron and Hermione up on his offer, if only to save everyone around him from friendly fire.

Rubbing Bandit's ears in small circles that calmed him more than the dog, Harry came to a conclusion. It was time to disappear. A sudden weight lifted off his shoulders, one he had been unaware of carrying until it was gone. He would quite the force, give up his desk and work out Bandit's new handler then he would go with Ron and Hermione. He was a danger to the normal world.

What was he going to tell Tina?

**A.N: Thanks to all my reviewers. I am off on a band excursion but will be back Sunday, hopefully with a new post. Yes…it will be that boring. **

**Smiles**


	8. Chapter 8: But Now Am Found

**Chapter 8: But Now Am Found**

"Harry!"

Harry looked up from the hard white plastic bench in the waiting room of the hospital. Tina came running through the lobby, her high heels clacking, hand bag tossing unchecked on her shoulder her red hair fanning out behind her. She could run in heels, despite the sharp point to the stilettos, she made her way to him quickly and threw herself at him before she could register his condition. Harry winced and made no move to hug her, not only because he had to leave her but because he physically couldn't.

He had broken a pair of ribs in one of his falls and a shot had caught him in his left shoulder. His blood stained shirt had been replaced with a thin cotton t-shirt, over which he had draped his leather jacket, arms out of the sleeves. His jeans were relatively clean and he had been able to wash the blood out of his hair and off his hands in the hospital showers. The gun man from the warehouse had died in the ER; they had been unable to stop the bleeding.

Normally they would have held him back but he pulled a few strings and used his charms and he feared a bit of magic had been involved, to get his release date bumped up to only 24 hours after his admittance.

Tina pulled back from the one-sided hug to look him up and down, taking his bandaged arm from its sling tenderly, pressing a kiss to each finger. He watched her sadly as she doted on each digit.

"Tina…"He whispered, feeling hollow and empty like he had always heard other officers describing after seeing some female bound up in garbage bags and gagged with an old sock in a dumpster. But this hollow feeling was completely different. He had lost everything that made him himself, rather then seeing some heartless act that made a hardened officer go home and hug his wife extra hard just because.

"Tina, I have to leave." Harry whispered, stroking her red hair with his good hand, a tear already leaking from the corner of his toughened eye.

"What? Where are you going?" She asked smiling like it was a vacation or a trip for interns.

"Somewhere you can't come. I'm so sorry, but this quest for my past has brought me to a place you can't be. I'm sorry Tina. I won't have you getting hurt."

"Potter," She smiled vindictively, a joke in her eyes, playing off the pain, in a very familiar way. "I am the squad's sharp shooter, a black belt in many forms of hand-to-hand and have mastery over the first intern to be given his own cases. I think we can take what ever comes at us." She kissed him hard, trying to silence his crazy thoughts. It was the shock talking, from what she had heard it had been pretty jarring.

"Not from someone else, Tina. I don't want to hurt you." He turned shimmering pain filled eyes with anguish not only from his own internal and external pain but from the pain he was causing her. "Please Tina, if I had know…I would have never become intimate with you. I'm sorry. I can't risk you."

"This isn't like you Riddle." She hissed, eyes tearing up with furry as she clenched his injured shoulder. "Or should I say Potter? Ever since you became Harry Potter you've changed. I want Tom back. Tom was a good man, Tom wouldn't do this to me, Tom wouldn't try to push me away, Tom-"

"Tom is no longer here." Harry whispered with sad eyes, his head falling into the curve of her neck and shoulder, tears falling down his cheeks. "Please leave your name and number after the beep and Harry will get back to you as soon as he's found himself."

He held her to him, clutching her with all the love in the world, everything he'd ever felt, showing her all the dreams he ever had for her, the ring he had thought of buying her, the children he had though they could have. Pure sorrow and worry took over and he pushed it all at her.

He couldn't cry. Something eating away at the slowly growing hole inside him wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He wanted to let the same tears that rained down Tina's cheeks to splatter his own. He wanted to show her that it hurt him just as much. He longed to open his chest and show her the holes leaving her was putting in his chest and let her bleed him dry before he left her. But that same cold creature wouldn't let him so much as let out a sob, let alone cry.

"I'm so sorry Tina, but I don't want to risk that. I'll come back if I can. Don't wait for me. Please, fall in love again. Have a family and a wonderful life. If I can be there to be part of it, then I know I will have died and gone to heaven, but if I'm not, don't wait up. I'll see you there someday. In the mean time, don't deny yourself."

He placed his lips on her forehead, bleeding himself out for her, ringing himself dry for her. Everything he had ever been, or thought he was, he forced out around her, coating her with love, shielding her with ever precious memory he had ever felt.

When he opened his eyes and removed his lips, the place where he pressed his lips was glowing with a warm pink light in the shape of a lightning bolt that feed into a network of pink veins that ran around her body covering her from head to toe in his love.

"I'll always love you." He whispered. "But this is one bloody sun set I can't let you ride into with me."

--

It had been one of the hardest weeks of his life. Harry had to force his resignation all the way up to the Chief of Police in order to get out of service. He had made his excuses to his team and with Tina's help had managed to get out on good terms with the officers. Many chalked it up to seeing what could really happen in the field, while others put it towards discovery of who he was, still more thought that he was simply trying to find his way in the world. Whatever the reason the people at the station thought he left for, all could see the throbbing ache in his eyes as he turned a final glance at the station.

He left with Bandit as the dog refused to be turned over to a new handler and was going to be put down if he wasn't taken. The mix had been too well trained, so much so that he responded only to his master and no matter what training he went through that master would only and always be Harry.

Harry had kept his companion gratefully. He had been morning many losses that week but loosing the dog would have been the proverbial straw that broke his proverbial back. He had collected his finances and paid off debts and tied up loose ends. He kept his apartment as he had no intention of falling straight back into his old life, but he had packed up the inessentials that weren't needed to make the place enough of a home. Pictures of Tina, his résumé and other paper trails went into one box while dart boards and CD collections went into another.

He walked in a kind of stupor, living without actually registering what was happening around him. He walked through life as if he were watching a movie rather then living. He watched boxes accumulated and worried calls piled up on his answering machine. He paused now and then to reload his refrigerator but otherwise he was hardly conscious of his actions and often drifting in between lives. He and Bandit spent several days trying to accommodate themselves to the unemployed life while Harry relived memory after memory on which he took detailed notes.

He found himself sometimes speaking in tongues he didn't even understand, writing in characters that seemed like someone had thrown up black spaghetti on his papers. Gibberish covered his notes, random "spells" and scenarios were posted on kitchen counters and his head board as grew accustomed to wandering his house with a pad of sticky notes to jot down the memories that hit him as he preformed mundane tasks that suddenly turned into extraordinary adventures he went on with Ron, or Hermione, or a young red head partnered with a crazy looking blonde to who he couldn't affix a name.

Three weeks past before Ron and Hermione came to him again. By that time Harry had quite shaving, no longer bothered with keeping the place clean in preparation for their arrival and lived in a stack of yellow sticky notes. He was sleeping when they came on him but was quick to awaken.

**Hissy, hissy, little snakey,**

**Slither on the floor,**

**You be good to Morfin**

**Or he'll nail you to the door.**

The series of hisses escaped his mouth upon awakening, as Harry had grown accustomed to repeating his dreams upon regaining rational control of his mind so as to remember them long enough to write them down.

"Harry?"

He glanced at Hermione. She was dressed in a zip up hooded sweatshirt decorated with a plethora of hearts and smiley faces and a pair of jeans decked out in rainbows. It seemed most unfit for the situation. She seemed to think so too as she glanced him over, taking in the bandaged arm and the way he kept his arm below his waist resolutely. She smiled at him nostalgically but Harry was quick to talk, shattering the memory she was calling to mind.

"I believe you guys. I can't escape it. I've killed a man. You have to help me. I don't want to hurt anyone." Harry babbled feverishly, as Bandit whimpered in the corner.

"It's okay Harry." Hermione whispered. "We've come to take you home."

Ron sat on his other side. "Don't worry mate. We'll get your magic under control and then get your memories back." He patted his friend on the shoulder, recalling a time when the boy would have stiffened at the touch and though he wince, Ron assumed it was because he had foolishly chosen the bandaged arm to pat.

"How about we order some pizza and talk? We did it once after the first half of the war. Rented a nice beach house and just talked. We were just muggles for a week." Hermione smiled rubbing small circled over his back.

"Yeah! Booze and movies, you showed me video games and Hermione licked us good. I had a few words to say about that. You backed me up with excuses and Hermione just sat in a chair with her book, laughing at us." Ron smiled widely, his freckles stretching over his face. It almost looked like it hurt, as if his face hadn't been in that position for a very long time.

"I taught you how to buggy board." Hermione beamed looking at him fondly, her bushy hair pulled back to show the curves of her heart-shaped face.

"Then Ginny showed up with the Twins and Charlie and we played Marco Polo. That was interesting especially as you used your special brand of magic to change into a fish every time you went under water. Ron and the Twins threw a fit as the rest of us had left our wands at the house. Ginny stuck up for you and then you two…well…we don't really know what happened to you after that." Hermione blushed as Ron went red behind the ears.

Harry smiled egger to hear more about the good times. He got up to order pizza and returned to listen to stories for thirty minutes until the pizza man arrived. Hermione answered the door as Harry was in the kitchen, scrounging up some beers.

"Wotcher Hermione." The pizza girl looked up from under the brim of her hat, her mousy brown hair changing to hot pink.

"Tonks!" Hermione squealed.

"Sorry. I had to see him. The word got out within Order ranks. Intercepted the girl on her way over and sent her back. Wanted to see him so badly. Please. Just a glimpse." She poked her head around the women to see past her into Harry's kitchen where the man was parading around in a large, but tight, sleeveless black t-shirt and jeans. His muscles rippled as he popped the top of the three beers he had on the counter.

Tonks let out a gasp.

"Time has been kind to him. You can barely see the scaring. He's so tan! And look at all that muscle. Oh Hermione he's gorgeous!" She squealed to the younger women. "Ginny will be thrilled. One picture for the love bird back home?" She asked materializing a camera from her pocket.

"He had a girl here, Tonks." Hermione whispered. "He doesn't remember Ginny at all, but his bird looked just like her." The two looked sadly back to the kitchen where Harry was grabbing some paper plates from the cupboard.

"He's still getting into scrapes." Tonks whispered looking at the bandaged arm and the white cloth around his chest, visible under the rise of his shirt as he carefully lowered himself to the ground to rummage in the crisper. He winced and put an arm around his lower waist, making sure not to let the appendage rise above the waist line. "He's gorgeous." She whispered, less excited and more fondly this time, like a proud aunt of a valedictorian at a modeling school, complementing her nephew.

"Best not to tell her just yet. Try to get him to remember her. I'm not sure how much more her heart can take." Tonks whispered, sadly watching Harry try and fail to stand a couple times, finally heaving himself into the air with a wince and a muffled groan.

"Hermione! Tips on the table get a move on or the pizza will be cold." Ron shouted from his seat on the living room floor.

Hermione and Tonks shared a look before Tonks took one last look at Harry and left. Hermione reentered the living room with the box of pizza just as Harry was returning with the beer. He shuffled wearily into the living room and flopped down planning to never stand up again. Bandit snuggled up to him, careful of his master's pain. He whimpered a little but Harry ruffled the space between his ears and gave him a slice of pizza. Bandit wolfed it down happily and snuggled up in the space behind Harry's back and the couch back.

They ate in silence for a little while, Hermione and Ron leaning into each other as Harry tried to make himself chew. It was painful to eat, to swallow, even to keep the food down. He gave up after half a pizza slice and feed the rest to Bandit, who accepted it begrudgingly, trying to communicate that he would have been happier if Harry was eating it.

Harry put his beer to his lips to find comfort in the warm buzz of alcohol induced happiness. Half way down his throat, the warm liquid invoked a memory.

_Harry laughed hard, coughing the brown liquid up to squirt out of his nose in mimic of Ron's actions only seconds ago. Hermione was caught between disgust and laughter as Ron flailed around on the floor at her knees. A box of pizza, a single slice left, lay open on the coffee table and four or five opened bottles, foaming at the mouth with warm brown bubbles._

_There was a girl in his lap, who had leapt away as he began to fold over into himself. She was laughing, a warm, rich, colorful laugh that made the foam that had escaped the bottles seemed to float around her sparkling in the glint of the lights. She was beautiful, more so then any human could be. Her ribbons of soft red hair flowed around her, lifted up on the soft sea breeze that flowed in through the window. She smiled widely, her warm brown eyes thrown into contrast with the soft blue tank top she wore. Her kaki shorts reveled just enough of her tan legs to open the mind to suggestion but not enough to welcome any old eye._

_And as he sat there, warm butter beer dripping out of his nose, in what might have been one of the most embarrassing situations of his life, he knew that only his eyes were welcomed to travel there. She came back down in front of him, a napkin in her hands to wipe away the mess lovingly. He smiled taking the napkin from her, finishing the job before he snatched her up in her arms and pulled her in close, kissing her long and hard._

_With Ginny, he was normal. He didn't have to pretend for her. He didn't have to be brave, strong, weak, or cowardly. He didn't have to be suave or macho; he didn't have to parade the dragon tattoo on his back to prove he was her man. But he did it any way, because I would do anything for his Ginny. And he promised that he would never let anything happen to her. He would always be there for her. War or no war._

When Harry returned to the present he was distraught to see that tears had welled up and leaked down his cheeks and that Hermione had pressed him to her chest in a heart warming hug. He wasn't sure if they had started when he returned to the present or if they had started in the vison and simply continued but he felt it cruel that the holes in his heart let him cry now. He'd never see this Ginny girl in the same light, didn't even fully remember her splender though it was obvious, but he could cry over her? Why?

Ron had collected both of them into his burly arms, his own silent sobs mixing with the soft pattering of rain that had started up. Harry began to shake, the effort to repress the tears to great. Soon he was panting, the wind outside picking up and he took in spasmodic breaths, in themselves shaky and uneven.

Then Hermione began to rub soothing circles over his back, pouring all her love into his soul in a beam of pure white light. It seemed like she had been waiting to do this for a very long time, for she poured everything she had into it. They began to sway as Harry's gasps became sobs, the skies overhead pouring down buckets of rain. His sobs turned to howls, thunder and lighting smashing in percussive accent to his woe.

Over and over, he cried her name, a garbled mess lost in his swollen tear streaked face. He sank into the love that surrounded tugging at it greedily as he cried. He couldn't remember ever crying like this. There was much he couldn't remember but he felt sure that an experience like the one pulsing through him that very instance would be memorable through any hardship.

Finally his cries pass on and the tears dried into streaks of his face. His eyes were left irritated red and his throat raw from the screams. He was tired, profoundly so but for the life of him couldn't sleep.

"Ginny." He croaked. "I want to see my Ginny." He grabbed up Bandit and held him close, relishing the warmth that seemed to flow through no other but the dog. He curled up tightly, trying to think but his mind was filled with her face, his eyes locked to the memory of hers, his nose filled with the smell of her shampoo, his fingers invisibly tracing the folds of the shirt she wore when he said goodbye.

"Take me to Ginny." He whispered. "I need Ginny to find me."


	9. Chapter 9: Bind Leading the Blind

Family Types: Year 2

**Chapter 9: Blind Leading the Blind**

Harry didn't know what had happened or when it had started but suddenly he could feel himself falling apart at the seams. He tried to stand multiple times only to have his knees collapse under him. He felt his chest being swallowed up in the black hole that had replaced his heart. He kept his hands firmly secured around his waist in order to keep himself together.

He felt as if he let go, he would loose himself completely and by the way Ron and Hermione kept his hands on his knees, Harry was sure that the action did more then mentally comfort him. His scar was pulsing, as if trying to suck in air for his lungs. It wasn't the sort of headache that one got from too much time in the sun. This was like someone was drilling from the inside of his head, desperately trying to get out.

The scar that had stayed quiet for so long, just sitting on his forehead attracting unwanted attention seemed to burst into life as snippets of memory came to him in flashes. Ginny was in each one. One were they were sprawled out by a lake her lap a pillow for his head. Another involved him teaching her how to make an omelet.

As soon as he started too moan in pain, it took all of ten minutes for the two wizards to pack up his excuse for a home.

They had him in Hermione's car with his bike and dog already packed away with the other junk that had gotten him through the last couple weeks. He wasn't sure what time it was, but the sun had only just sunk behind the hills and Ron was talking about dinner. Hermione kept sending him furtive glances, biting her lower lip as he held himself together. Bandit could even tell that he was about to collapse. He had wedged himself between Harry and the door, holding him up so he didn't have to.

The memories slowly died down, the throb of the previously dormant scar he only constant reminder of what had just happened. The scenery that flashed by in the window meshed into one giant blur and as soon as they had started, they were pulling into the drive way. Hermione opened his door for him as Ron hurried to the small house in front of which he had parked. He had an arm full of redheads long before he had knocked on the door and he was clearly apologizing.

Hermione smiled, patiently waiting for him to get out of the car. Harry nudged Bandit out before reluctantly stepping out on the lawn. His black leather jacket was zipped up to the collar in a better attempt to hold his chest together but he still found it necessary to wrap his arms around his waist.

Bandit brushed against his legs whining when Harry refused to release himself to reassuringly stroke him. Hermione smiled comfortingly and took hold of Harry's elbow, driving him forward with a firm hand that pressed into his back.

"Don't worry Harry. It's okay if you don't remember. That's why we are here." She smiled and pushed him closer to the cluster of red heads that was now grouped in front of the door. Ron was shouting over the mob of questions, trying to tell his story but was hardly getting a word in with eight of them yelling over top of each other.

Hermione hurried forward, leaving Harry to emerge from the shadows on his own, with only Bandit's nudging to keep him moving.

"MUM!" Ron finally shouted. "We have guests."

He waved for Harry to join them, snaking his arm around Hermione's waist, a proud smile on his face, as if he were the parent of a particularly accomplished child whom he was showing off to his family for the first time.

When Harry crossed into the pool of light that leaked from the doorway over the threshold and onto the grass, a shuddering gasp rippled through their numbers.

Silence over took them, a silence that made Harry break his oath not to look up, to gauge their reactions. He didn't know any of these people, with the exception of the one, small female in the corner. A small smile snuck onto his face and her name breathed across his lips, desperate attempts to grasp at memories driving him to embrace anything remotely familiar.

"Ginny" He whispered, his hard emerald eyes settled on her, his hands cautiously leaving his sides, testing himself to see if he would fall apart now that he had a brace. Suddenly sever screams of surprised delight filled the silence and someone had hurled themselves at him with all their might and was squeezing him to death.

Harry froze as several weeping bodies collided with his knocking him off balance and sending him crashing to the ground so his breath was swept out of him with a painful whoosh. It seemed like everyone in their huddle had descended on him at once, with the exception of the one person he wanted there.

Ginny stood back, holding herself, her face pale, her chocolate brown eyes filling with tears that trickled down her cheek in a sparkle that took his breath away again, harder this time. He was being passed around like a new toy to be shared with many brothers and sisters. Ginny, the initial recipient of the toy, was pushed into the background, her rightful claim pulled out of her reach as he stared at her with glassy eyes.

She shook her head mournfully and then a small hysterical laugh escaped her bring Harry crashing back to reality. He shook off the unknown redheads and pushed through the others, his eyes only for Ginny. He came up to her, suddenly towering over her by a head though she didn't seem afraid of him. He wasn't this tall the last time he had seen her. He knew that much. He sat down on the steps of the staircase that wound up beside them to collect himself.

"Is it really you?" He whispered, reaching long tentative fingers out to take her slender hand.

She gripped his hand tightly reassuring him. "Is it really me?" She laughed the same hysterical laugh. "Is it really _you_?!"

Suddenly Harry's broad arms were filled with warm love, raw and unhindered by time. It was like nothing had happened and despite every memory he had forgotten, he knew he belonged in her arms. The shear power of her beating heart seemed to jumpstart his own so the two beat loudly in their chests. Harry realized with a hint of shock that his had skipped a beat so it was synced with hers.

"Ginny. I'm so sorry. I can't imagine….it was hard for me…but you knew…how you could live with…" Harry's questions came out half formed and unintelligent. But Ginny simply smiled and shook her head pressing a finger to his lips.

"I told you I'd wait." She smiled and straddled his legs so she sat on his knees bringing her head to rest on his chest, finally feeling like she could breathe again. A sigh that had been caught in her chest for three years obstructing more then just her airways, slipped past her lips and she really slept for the first time in a long time, no longer worried that she would wake to find he was gone. After all, she had fallen asleep on him rather then fallen asleep to find him under her. He wasn't going to slip away this time.

--

"So, you're Bill the Dragon Keeper?" Harry pinched the bridge of his nose with his left hand as his right was busy keeping Ginny on his lap.

They had been sitting in the living room for an hour reintroducing themselves without making a bit of progress in dredging up old memories.

"No, but close. I'm Charlie the Dragon Keeper. Bill is the one with the earring and the thick scull, remember?" Charlie smiled at the boy wonder and klonked his brother on the head to demonstrate.

"All thanks to you, brother. If you hadn't dumped me off my broom so many times I might not have lived through so many rock slides "The small gathering laughed lightly, willing to laugh at anything after three years of hearing nothing but tears.

Harry sighed and shook his head, bouncing his knee a little so Ginny scooted further up his chest. He let his left hand fall idle on her hair before he began to stroke it over and over.

"And you're the one who took the dragon from the Game Keeper…Filch?" Harry tried.

"Close again." Mrs. Weasley…Molly, encouraged. "The Game Keeper is Hagrid, the half-giant."

"Right," Harry muttered feeling his headache coming back. "He's the one who had Buckbeak right?"

"Correct!" Hermione snag smiling at him reassuringly.

Harry gave her a weak smile before returning his attention to Ginny. "What did I do?" He whispered.

"You worked for the Ministry." Ron piped up. "We'd have lunch together ever Tuesday and Friday."

"But what did I do in the ministry. I know that you took over the 'missing persons' section as Hermione called it, but what did I do?" Harry looked back up suddenly curious.

"Well… Umm…you worked as an Auror, a Dark Wizard catcher, kinda like the police. Seems only natural you'd gravitate to them." Hermione tried, suddenly realizing she didn't know the first thing about the details of Harry's work.

"Who did I work with?" Harry asked, not that he wanted more names to remember but they might trigger memories that would tell him what he wanted to know.

"Uh….."Ron let his mouth drop open as he thought back. It looked surprisingly difficult, the way he crunched up his face and creased his brows together to get all his thoughts into one place.

"You really kept your work to your self." Hermione mussed.

Just then Ginny whispered a name that no one could quiet catch.

"What was that love?" Harry whispered leaning in to hear her.

"Jonnie" Ginny complied before snuggling into his jacket.

Harry froze and concentrated. Jonnie. Jonnie.

_Harry sat across from Ginny picking at a salad. _

"_You have to eat Harry. You need to keep up your strength."_

"_Jonnie said I'd experience changes in diet. I just can't believe I wouldn't be able to eat at all." Harry complained picking up the cup of coffee that rested at his elbow. _

_Ginny smiled be for getting up and waltzing around the table in her brown pinstriped pants, her black blouse exposing her wonderful curves as she no longer had a jacket with which to hide them._

_He slipped her rear into his lap and draped her arms around his neck._

"_Does this have something to do with that month long business trip?"_

_Harry nodded and kissed her check. "I wish I could tell you but this is my secret. I promise once I'm sure it's okay, I will tell you."_

"_Promise?" She pouted sticking out her bottom lip._

"_Promise." Harry smiled stealing it so he could instigate a kiss. She happily complied._

Harry shook his head like a dog clearing its ears of water. He glanced down at Ginny, sorrow filling him.

"I guess neither of us will know huh? If only I wasn't so damn secretive." He smiled sadly. "But I guess I had my reasons. I can only hope I did."

Harry buried his head into Ginny's soft hair breathing in her scent.

"It seems I was too secretive for my own good."


	10. Chapter 10: Meet the Order

Family Types: Year 2

**Chapter 10: Meet the Order**

Harry woke up with start. Sitting straight up he turned around and tried to remember where he was. He reached over to the small bedside table and felt around until he found his glasses. Slipping them on he glanced around, jumping again when he felt Bandit's cold nose against his bare back.

That's when he remembered. He was in Fred and George's room; they were the Weasley twins that worked at the joke shop in Dragon Alley….no Diagon Alley. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, the continuous headache he had come to expect with each waking, already built up behind his eyes.

A month. He had been staying at the Burrow for a month trying to reacquaint himself with the forgotten past, which had started with name and had now advanced to places and things. His days were spent like some bezar dictionary game where they said a word and he came up with the most ludicrous definition he could, usually ending up far off targets.

He could call each of the Weasley's by name, recall their occupations and even remember a few instances he had shared with them, but that was it. For two weeks nothing else had come to him and it was starting to depress him. The cool winds of November had changed into the betting ones of December.

He had made a surprising amount of progress but he had remembered everything he could and he was still unsure of his place in the magical world or what was happening, or happened, to it. The Weasleys weren't much help, they seemed to be shielding him from the world. Even physically confining him.

He was going stir crazy. Stuck in the Burrow for "his own safety", Harry had cleaned every inch of the property and was still looking for things to do. His friends had given him a broom, which he supposedly loved to fly, but as soon as he had mounted the silly thing, he had fallen right off. His friends had looked more worried then a bruised buttocks could account for.

They weren't telling him things. Harry knew that. He also seemed to be missing more of himself since he had talked to them, physically feeling the holes now, second-guessing his actions and words. Before he could function easily, but they watched him and looked surprised when he did something simple like read a book rather then play chess with Ron. In fact they all seemed surprised each morning to find him at an already set table each morning, their wizarding paper in his hands and coffee at his elbow, like they expected him to run off and do something stupid instead of listening to them.

The weirdest reaction he had gotten was when he was confined up in his room every other Thursday night, to which he happily retreated. They seemed to expect a fight every time. To test out his theory, he insisted, over lunch, that he be allowed to remain down stairs for the next meeting, or so he believed them to be.

He was met with some resistance but he quickly pushed through staying stubborn. Light seemed to fill every Weasley's eye. It scared him a little. He really didn't care if he went or not, but it seemed that these people expected him to want to be in the mix. Ginny on the other hand was frowning, not at him but at her family. He looked at her, taking her hand and her glare softened. He vowed he'd talk to her later.

He hadn't spent much time alone with Ginny as she often disappeared through out the day and came back lighter then air. Sometimes she ignored him, others she was all over him. It was confusing especially with the transition, but he knew her better then to think that the frown was meaningless.

Latter wouldn't come until half an hour before the meeting. The two were quietly sitting in Harry's room, Ginny idly playing with his sheets while he stoked Bandit's fur.

"What was bothering you?" Harry asked, kissing the nape of her neck. She shuddered, tears blinking out of her eyes. Bandit growled deep in his throat though Harry only gave him a fleeting glance as he focused on Ginny who was apparently trying to apologize to

"You're not you." She whispered.

"What?" Harry asked confused.

"It's like something is missing from your personality. You used to rush head-long into danger, arms flailing, pretending you knew what you were doing." She coughed out a laugh and Harry realized she was crying harder.

"You used to shove your nose in places where it would get blasted off by a curse and you didn't let anyone stop you. Not even Sirius."

"He's my godfather right? The ex-con who was never really a con?"

Ginny nodded sadly.

"The worst part is we can't accept this calmer, more down to earth you. We need you to be our flamboyant hero." She shuddered with another sob. "But that's not it. You actually love me now. It's so strange." Harry was confused, even Bandit's head had perked up, his ears up and his eyes trained on Ginny. "Harry your-"

"HARRY! GINNY DINNER!"

Ginny was cut off by her Molly calling them down, the clatter of silverware and dishes background noise. Ginny stood up and fled the room to compose herself while Harry looked bewilderedly after her. He turned back to Bandit who was looking at him hopefully.

"Women" Harry smiled hugging the dog to him, scratching him behind the ears as the mutt licked his desperately. "What' with all the love boy? Is it because you know we're going to dinner?" Harry smiled and stood up, not bothering to look for a response. He stretched out and slipped on the chocolate brown button up shirt he wore over his black, long sleeved t-shirt. He had taken to wearing long sleeves when he had noticed the unusual amounts of scars on his arms. No use changing right?

He patted his leg, motioning for Bandit to follow, before shutting the door behind them. He slipped down the stairs to see a host of people there, all wizards by their dress. They were neat people. He couldn't say way but that bothered him a bit. He walked down the rest of the stairs but somehow remained unnoticed by the people.

He snuck around to the kitchen, watching them, hoping for a single memory of any of them. Nothing came to him. He did get a weird feeling from the ratty man already at the table but that was it.

"Hey Bandit." Fred and George can up on either side of his dog, George nearly brushing his elbow which would have seemed very rude were it not for his next statement. "Where's Harry?"

"Is Harry joining us tonight?" an elderly witch asked, a smile crossing her face.

"Oh good, I can't wait to see him again." Cried a purple hair witch beside her.

"It'll be nice." Agreed a graying man on the right of what looked like a biker dude. "But if all you saw is true he won't remember most of us."

The biker looked sad and even wrapped and arm around the graying man's waist.

"Potter's a tough kid. He'll get through it." The decrepit old man with a spinning blue eye huffed. He clunked over to the table and sat beside the scruffy man saying "Budge up Mundungus."

"I miss working with him." Agreed a tall black man who sat beside the crazy clonking wizard as he and the Mundungus character tore less then dignified into a chicken wing.

"He was knowledgeable in his area, but then again he had to be. I don't suppose he remembers that either?" Asked the purple haired witch.

Ron and Hermione shared a sad look.

"He's not much like the Harry we knew." Bill Weasley whispered sitting beside Charlie.

"He's gotten quiet, almost homely." Charlie added. The biker dude dropped into a chair like the world had just ended.

"There there Sirius, it's not like you and Harry won't get along any more." Molly consoled the distraught man.

"Yes it is!" Sirius cried. "I miss him so much and now your telling me he's not him?"

"He's still Harry." The gray man piped up. "He just-"

"Can't fly." The twins cut the man off.

The whole table went stock still wit the exception of Sirius and the gray haired man who were both choking on something, a chicken wing in Sirius's case, juice in the gray man's. Bandit was whining at his feet as Harry tensed up, their words hitting home. They weren't hateful words but hell, he was trying his best, and they were all mad because he couldn't ride a bucking broom? Wasn't it good enough that he could clean with one?

"Harry Potter?" The purple witch started. "The youngest Seeker in a century, can't fly?"

"Nope." George sighed.

"Fell flat on his arse right after lift off." Fred sighed as if morning a sibling rather then the talent of a friend.

"Now all he does is cook and read. We were surprised when he forced his way into this meet, though we didn't try too hard to keep him out." Ron added.

Just then Ginny came down.

"Ah Ginny." Hermione tired to break the tension. "Where's Harry? Is he coming down soon?"

Ginny gave them a puzzled look.

"Harry's came down before I did." Everyone looked surprised.

"I'm….I'm right here." Harry chocked out.

This is what they thought? Really? Fine. Just more people to disappoint.

"Sorry folks. I'm not recalling anything more. I don't know why and I'm sorry you lost your Harry but I can't help that."

Turning on his heel the apparently invisible Harry stalked out of the kitchen and into the forest beside the Burrow, Bandit at his heels.

"Didn't you see him Moody?" Sirius demanded.

"NO!" The ex-Auror growled. "I didn't see a fucking thing."

Sirius and Remus jumped up and raced out the door after Harry, leaving everyone to look at their plates in dejected guilt.

What a welcome to the wizarding world they had given him.

Mundungus on the other hand, had already slip out the door and was well on his way past the apparition wards. With a crack he was gone from the Burrow and in the lobby of the Daily Prophet. He approached the receptionist, tussled by the busy reporters rushing around, ink stains covering them from head to foot. Paper was everywhere, people grabbing them up from the floors, out of the air and handing them to other people, marking them up with quills kept in hats or belts, or folding them up into airplanes and charming them to another section.

The blond in the reception booth gave him an irritated look as if too say 'why aren't you done yet'.

"Rita Skeeter, if you please."


	11. Chapter 11: Fighting to Run Away

Family Types: Year 2

**Chapter 11: Fighting to Run Away**

Harry's heart beat was the only thing keeping time. He raced through the fields, past a lake and into an orchard. He was well away from the house by the time he felt he could stop running. More had to stop, then felt he actually could but he didn't like to think that his body was out of his control.

He sat down, his back propped against a tree, legs spread wide in the tall grass, his chest heaving.

"Why?" He panted. "Why did this happen to me? Why does everything happen to me?"

Bandit plopped down on his lap, all 180 pounds of giant dog landing squarely on the only slightly larger man. Harry's breath shout out of him and he got the feeling Bandit was scolding him for his self-pity.

"Well excuse me." Harry huffed at his mutt. "Back home I was everything I could be, now I can't even be a normal freak!"

Bandit whined and licked his face, but it wasn't a sloppy love kiss this was more of a sympathetic defiance, as if the dog understood and wanted Harry to forget about them and run off to join the circus or something. It was a mark of how upset he was that Harry actually considered the ludicrous idea.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps came over the hill side. Harry jumped up forcing the dog off his lap. Reaching up he grabbed a hold of a tree branch and hauled himself up into it's leafy depths.

"HARRY!"

Harry groaned. Of course they would fallow him. He was…what did they say? The-Boy-Who-Lived…Christ what he wouldn't do to just be Tom Riddle again. It was nice and all, meeting family but seriously, the baggage that came with them was a little over the top.

"Harry! Come down from there."

Peeking out Harry saw the biker Sirius and his aged friend looking past him, Bandit standing between them. He should have hauled the dog up with him. Harry sighed and stuck his head out.

"You sure you want to talk with me? I'm not your Harry. You don't know if it will be the same." Feeling childish, Harry retreated back into his foliage enclosed lair.

"You have to understand Harry." Sirius sighed, apparently experienced in the art of talking to a stubborn man of Harry's age. Though looking back on it, Harry supposed that Sirius would have been experienced in talking to him specifically. "Hermione and the Weasleys have known you only a little longer then Remus and I. Hearing from them how different you were was just a bit of a shock."

Remus nodded; seemingly think up something to say.

"Only a couple years ago you were on top of the Wizarding world. You were the go-to-guy for fighting the Dark Arts. For Merlin's sake you taught fifth years how to fight and battled with Voldemort twice before your sixth year, like really dueled him. After that you worked your arse off, leaving a lot behind." Sirius explained.

"You were an Auror at seventeen, the Minister's adviser, a weapon in every way shape and form. You booted the corrupted out of the Ministry and single handedly put away two-thirds of Death Eaters, cleared Snape's name as well as Mini-Malfoy who were both spies for the light." Remus listed, tick off his fingers to keep track.

"You got bills passed to ensure magical equality for creatures and hybrids no matter what happened and made sure that there weren't any loop holes at all with the help of Kreature, who you managed to get under your control. You built relations between nations and races that had been feuding for centuries; the most famous of which was the Slytherin/Gryffindor mess." Sirius exclaimed.

Then he noticed Harry's look of overwhelming dejection closely fallowed by one of confusion.

"Most importantly, you took care of your family and anyone else you could. You built orphanages out of pocket money. Hell you started the biggest branch of co-wizard-muggle orphanages and boarding schools for the less fortunate in the entire wizarding world." Sirius piped up.

"You were the founder of the magical branch of the muggle social services and the agency in charge of preventing wizarding hate crimes, whether the child is a wizard in a magic hating family" Remus looked for the normal involuntary twitch but Harry kept his eyes trained on Bandit "or a squib in a wizarding family. Not to mention you founded a place for squibs to learn what magic they could and a refugee for disowned children."

"You are a good man, Harry James Potter." Sirius tipped the man's chin up to look at him. "Whether you know it or not."

"You are a good man with a big heart and that hasn't changed. It's just overwhelming for us too." Remus smiled, desperately wanting to hug the man but refraining. "We're here to help you, but it's as much an adjustment for us as it is for you."

"Did we mention that you were the youngest Seeker in a century?" Sirius raised and eyebrow, glancing at Harry from out of his peripherals.

"What's a Seeker?" Harry smiled suddenly looking.

"What's a Seeker? What's a Seeker? Oh boy do we have work." Sirius joked.

Harry felt strange warmth bubbling up into a laugh that seemed to be contagious. Dropping out of the tree, Harry listened to Remus and Sirius explain things the Weasleys hadn't and tell him stories the others had conveniently forgotten like the time Hermione had turned herself into a cat with a potion. Odd how they remembered all of Harry's embarrassing moments but none of their own.

Soon all three were trudging back to the house, punch drunk on life.

Outside the door to the Burrow all the Weasleys, Hermione, and the few people Harry didn't know were sitting or standing, all looking a little worried and guilty. They were all shuffling there feet or shifting their weight from foot to foot as they took an intense interest in the grass below.

As soon as the laughed topped the hill they looked up to see Harry happily sandwiched between his godfather and his surrogate uncle, the dog Bandit bounding around at his feet. The sight was so familiar, their laughter so infectious that soon Ron and Hermione began to laugh, whether from the familiarity of the sight or the sheer happiness for their friend, it was unclear, but soon the laughter spread through the whole group and all tension was forgotten.

Dinner was moved outside under the warming winds of the March night. It was cool enough to be comfortable but not so warm that coffee wasn't welcomed.

--

"Last night, worries were lost and warm laughter filled the sky. Such laughter hasn't been heard since the time before He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Name's rise to power. For in this small hill side, the most powerful wizard of the age has once again returned from the dead. Harry James Potter, 23 year old, was seen in the company of his godfather, Sirius Orion Black newly cleared of the charges against him and Remus John Lupin-Black.

According to sources Mr. Potter has been residing at the Burrow, home of Molly and Arthur Weasley and their copious offspring for a month now. Hermione Jean Granger and her fiancé Ronald Bilius Weasley, good friends of Mr. Potter seemed to have found Mr. Potter working as a muggle police officer (the Aurors of the muggle world), leave all us readers wondering, what has Mr. Potter been up too for the last three years?"

Harry looked up from his cereal when he heard Mr. Weasley…Arthur fold up the copy of The Daily Prophet which had arrived with breakfast. Everyone at the table was looking at him, all seemingly bracing themselves for his reaction.

"You didn't tell me you two were married." Harry accused turning to Sirius and Remus who had spent the night in hopes of getting a hangover potion in the morning, one of Molly's specialties. "Or that you two were getting married." Harry passed a meaningful look down the table to Ron and Hermione.

The whole table seemed to collapse on themselves.

"Harry, do you understand what's happened?" Hermione asked calmly.

"Yeah, my family is holding out on me." Harry elbowed Sirius who grunted into his coffee.

"No!" Ron cried, a bit of onion hanging from his lips from the sausages he was scarffing down. Hermione leaned over and pulled it away. He thanked her with a smile and returned to the matter at hand

"Harry, you were as famous if not more so then Dumbledore and Merlin combined." Ron looked at his old friend imploringly.

"Dumbledore was the caretaker right?" Harry asked jokingly.

"NO that was filch Dumbledore was-"

"The headmaster." Harry sighed. "It's called a joke Ron. Relax. I just don't see why that matters."

"Harry, sweetheart." Ginny took his hand lightly. "You have a habit of never dying. Everyone was sure you had simply disappeared. Now they're going to want to know what you were thinking in disappearing when there was still work to be done. You took care of an evil man and most of his cohorts but everyone expected you to do even more. They'll want an explanation. They'll hound you every day and night. You won't be able to stay here."

"And more importantly, someone here squealed." Bill put in as Flur, who had arrived that morning with their twin girls, Dominique and Dorielle, nodded vigorously at his side.

Harry looked down at his cereal and, choosing to ignore the worries, picked up his spoon again and began eating, to the annoyance of his fellows.

"Harry-"

Hermione was cut off by a camera flash coming from the open window facing the garden. Harry turned around to see a hat ducking out of sight. Standing up he lunged forward with reflexes he hadn't recalled possessing and snatched the reported up and through the window by the collar of his shirt.

Throwing him down on the table sending plates scattering to the floor.

"Please Mr. Potter sir!" The reporter squeaked "I'm just trying to do my job!"

"What ruining peoples lives?" Harry spat, still holding the man down by the front of his shirt.

"No, just provin' to our readers you're really back sir."

"Send anyone else here and you will be the first person gets a very personal interview with my wand." Harry growled. "I am not a poster boy, no matter what I was in the past. Now go." Harry launched the man back out the window and turned around to find the plates repairing themselves though no one had drawn a wand. The food on the floor vanished and plates began to refill themselves.

"Please, excuse me. Continue your meal." Harry left the table and headed up the stairs to his room. He sat down on his bed with a thump and a groan when bandit nudged the door open.

_Curious._ Harry thought. _I was sure I locked that door. Must have forgotten in my anger. But they're right, I should have seen this coming. After all it was Reta Skitter. What that has to do with the severity of the situation I can't recall._

His thought train was cut short when Bandit leapt up onto the bed and lay down beside him, one paw over his master's chest, his body squished up against Harry's.

Harry frowned.

"Bandit" he turned to face the dog who watched him with wide innocent eyes. "Have you been eating table scraps? You've gotten huge!"

The dog leapt up offended and turned his back on Harry apparently to leave the room, though his plot was foiled by the closed door. Harry laughed and heaved himself up. "I'm sorry boy. I've gained weight too." He laughed reaching out to pull Bandit back to him. "I guess we should start up our training again. After all I'm and important figure around these parts." The sarcasm in his voice would have been heard by a deaf granny.

Bandit considered him from the corner of his eye, still serving Harry his back.

"Aw, come on Bandit." Harry pleaded. "You know I love you no matter what size you are right?"

Bandit bared his teeth.

Harry laughed. "Sorry boy. Come on. I'll make it up to you after a work out."

Bandit turned a calculating eye on his master then banded over licked his check and hurried back to the door bouncing up and down. Harry laughed again and stood up snatching up a light coat.

Out in the field Harry ran Bandit through his paces, ever conscious of the watching reporter and camera men in the bushes. He made sure to stop and stare at them pointedly, letting them know he knew they were there and simply didn't care.

He was going to fight this. He wasn't going to be chased away from the truth. Still all he wanted to do was run away, back to being Tom Riddle. He was fighting on both ends, against himself and the public. Fighting to runaway and fighting to remain. He wondered if life as Harry Potter would always be this way. Always fighting.

No wonder he had left.

**AN:**

**Sorry it's been so long. I was actually away at a camp for Creative Writing for three weeks and since I do not own a laptop I was unable to update. But here we are, another successful chapter up.**

**Thanks to all my readers and reviewers!**

**LastCornerStone**


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